Having Google Places issues? Did your page disappear? Did they suddenly suspend your account for no reason? Reviews disappearing? First, don’t panic, you probably didn’t do anything wrong. Anything that is happening now can probably be fixed.
Understand that this is a HUGE (and fairly new) software program that has to account for and manage every small business in the developing world. It is built by software and run by computers. So if it’s run by computers there are going to be glitches and bugs.
I’ve experienced it many times on my own account. Most of my clients have called me at one time or another freaking out about one problem or another. And it’s understandable many of our businesses are dependent on Google. They can make or break a good company. It’s not fair, but right now that’s just the way it is.
Here is the advice I give to my clients:
Step 1: try to log into your Places account. If you can log in and make changes then you should be ok, move on to Steps 2 and 3. If not, you will have to skip to the last step.
Step 2: Have you made any changes to your account that could be considered spammy? This includes keyword stuffing or adding fake Places accounts to rank in other cities. If so, change it back or delete the fake accounts. Give it a few days and check it again.
Step 3: If you are under suspension, try deleting everything except the business name, address and phone. Wait a few days and if it works, add the extra stuff back one at a time and if it breaks on something, leave it off. This is a long tedious process, but it may be necessary especially if Google’s software is red-flagging text, pics or videos.
Step 4: Get on the Google Places Forum, see if you are experiencing a known issue. Most people don’t know that you can actually contact Google and get a response (slowly) from a live human, but first you have to go through the trouble shooting steps: http://support.google.com/places/?hl=en
Step 5: This is taken from an email one of my client’s received from Google: If you’re confident that your business fits within our guidelines, then search for your business at mapmaker.google.com and see if it has been marked as removed. If you’re able to find it, attempt to undo the removal and reinstate your listing on Maps. It may take a couple of days for your reinstatement to be processed.
If you’re unable to reinstate your page this way, then please remove your listing from your Google Places dashboard by clicking “Delete” then “Remove my listing from my Google Places account,” then recreate the listing. You will need to undergo PIN verification again if that was your original verification process, but doing so may cause your listing to surface cleanly on Maps once you input your new PIN.
UPDATE: It turns out you can now speak with the Google Adwords Express team about your Places listing. If you have Google Adwords Express you will find a phone number in the help section of your account.
Comment from Reader
“Maybe this will help everyone also. I talk. To Google all the time. If you have a business account and are a paying customer you can contact them about any issues from mail to places etc.. associated with your Google business account.
Hope this helps…”
Steve Samoska