Google Places was Suspended and suffered a large Local SERP Drop

obcted · Feb 5, 2013

Hi Drew and Linda,

Nothing gives me the the impression the client is trying to be sneaky. His office is set up oddly. He rents the suite 600 at 6 beacon which contains about 8-12 separate office rooms. He subleases office space to other attorneys and some non attorneys. Of the attorney's that work there 2 work directly for him. And at least one does not and has his own website.

The sites listed below are all in the suite 600 these websites use 6 beacon but they don't appear to use Suite 600 in places.

http://www.gsglaw.us/contact.html (not using suite 600 in places)
Patent Law Massachusetts Attorney | Intellectual Property Suffolk County Lawyer | Boston, MA, RD (not using suite 600 in places)
http://www.policystrategists.com/privacy.html (not using suite 600 in maps/places)
http://www.bostonlitigationlawyerblog.com/ (old website run by lawyer who now works for client not listing suite 600 on places)

It's just the case of one small firm renting out a big space suite 600 and then renting out some of that space to others. Client is in good communication with all parties so if asking someone to change something would be helpful I can ask him to do that. Right now I'm just waiting and hoping to hear back from Google Via the troubleshooter email I sent.

Is there anything else I can/could/should be doing to fix this?

Ted

Linda Buquet · Feb 5, 2013

Ted let's wait and see what Google says.

We can only guess at the reason for suspension and this is an issue that COULD have caused a problem. But it's also possible it isn't the problem and this is an erroneous suspension Google will reverse. No one knows for sure but the big G.

I know it's hard, but try to just sit tight.

obcted · Feb 5, 2013

Linda,

Thank you for understanding. I know waiting patiently is the best course it's just difficult!

Ted

Linda Buquet · Feb 5, 2013

Ted, have not looked at this one deeply but looks like may be some similar confusion with other practitioner that moved, etc. Just thought you might want to read.

https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/business/bkKT95Yu6wY/8aaz_LmyBu0J

obcted · Feb 7, 2013

Hi all,

Just received an email from Google Support.

"Hello Ted,

Your account was suspended because there was another account that had the same business listing, which is a violation of our guidelines. Please use the account associated with,ted@businessemail and transfer the ownershiptoted@clientsemail. Following this procedure will keep your information organized and account from experiencing technical difficulties. Once the steps have been completed, please allow 3 weeks for your listing to appear on maps. If the listing does not appear on maps reply to this email and I will troubleshoot further

Here are the steps for transferring ownership:
http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2380629"

The directions given are in reference to Google+Pages. I only have one "pending" listing in places dashboard so I'm guessing they tried to merge my Google+Page with the Places account and because "Ted@businessemail" was the owner of the Google+Page and "ted@clientsemail" was the name on the places account it was denied and suspended?

Google's email isn't very clear and their directions to transfer ownership in G+Pages are wrong.. Ted@businessemail uses gmail but when I try to transfer ownership to a non google account it won't let me. I had to create a new google account. I named it tedclient@gmail.com. This email address is now properly a manager (but must wait 2 weeks before I can transfer ownership) but this is not the "Ted@client.com" email address so the places and Google+ page still won't link up.

I tried again. When I click on the invitation in the email sent to "Ted@cleint.com" I get sent here:

So the first time I clicked "add any email addresst"

and entered the email address associated with the places account "Ted@client". But now when I hit enter on the screen above I always get sent to the screen below. Which is the wrong email address I need.

I tried using different browsers and private mode in case it was just still logging in. I can't seem to get "Ted@client" as the manager of the page so that I can then wait two weeks to transfer ownership to it. I'm sorta afraid the support email is some third party outsourced support that didn't really look at the issue. Has anyone had this trouble with getting a non-google associated email to be a manager on a Google+Page? Does the advice google recommended seem to make sense?

Thank you,

Ted

Linda Buquet · Feb 7, 2013

Ted that totally made my head spin AND I'm juggling so many problems, hard to keep them all straight and no time to re-read this whole thread BUT...

Haven't we this whole time been dealing with a suspension IN PLACES DASH?

This email seems to be about the G+ BUSINESS page?

Tell me again the background with the G+B page? Did you merge or try to?

Because there is a bunch of WEIRD stuff going on with G+B pages and Google forcing verification even if you don't want to then throwing all kinds of errors.

PLUS on G+B merging and verifying with a Place page it is NOT supposed to matter if they are different email accounts.

BUT it IS a violation to have a Place page claimed in more than one account. So I would THINK that's what support was referring to BUT it sounds like they are talking G+B so I am just totally confused.

Again, I may be missing a beat here. So can you try to clarify in simple 1,2,3 steps?

Because I'm thinking I MAY have to refer Google to this thread and they don't have time to read and try to figure out this whole long thread. SO SUMMARIZE.

EXAMPLE:
1) I tried to merge the Place page from this account with the G+ page from this account
2) Then ABC happened
3) Then XYZ happened
4) Then was suspended (or whatever the sequence was)

obcted · Feb 7, 2013

Hi Linda,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry about the long post my head is spinning too.

1. Tried verifying places account. Made a mistake and had two of the same listings as pending in the google Dashboard.

2. Places account was suspended for violation of quality guidelines.

3. Deleted one listing and currently have "Suspended" in Places dashboard and one optimized places listing marked as "Pending".

4. Sent Troubleshooter email to Google - the advice was to make Google+Pages Owner same as Places owner. That is set "ted@neilburnslaw.com" to owner for associated "Law Office of Neil Burns" Google+Page.

5. Can't set google+pages owner to "Ted@neilburnslaw.com"

I just don't see how setting the owner of Google+Page to "Ted@neilburnslaw.com" will fix the places problem even if I could set that up.

Thank you very much.

Ted

Linda Buquet · Feb 7, 2013

One last thing. Is your Places dash still "Suspended" with the red flag, or did suspended go away as others are reporting and now it only says "Pending". (Last I knew it was still suspended but above you said pending.)

obcted · Feb 7, 2013

Hi Linda,

Sadly still suspended.

Thank you,

Ted

Linda Buquet · Feb 8, 2013

Wait a sec Ted. How did we get back to dealing with G+ verification.

You should NOT try verify/merge a G+ page if the Place page has data issues.

Your Places dash is suspended. The listing in now UNVERIFIED and disconnected from dash.
SO YOU CAN'T try to verify G+ like I told you before.

"You can't verify/merge with a Place page that has data issues and suspended means it's borked. So no can't verify til Place page problem is resolved either by reinstatement (OR if that fails, deleting and starting over in new acct.)"

Strongly encourage you to not do anything with G+ for now til the Places listing is resolved.

obcted · Feb 8, 2013

Hi Linda,

The only thing with the Google+page I did was follow the directions from the troubleshooter email I received back from Google. That is I tried to add "Ted@client.com" as a manager of the Google+page. They system wouldn't even let me do that. I have no plans of even touching Google+pages again until I get the go-ahead.

Ted

Linda Buquet · Feb 8, 2013

Thanks Ted, that's the point I wanted to make for Google, because I escalated this thread to them.

You have a suspended PLACE page.

Asked for PLACES support to reinstate.

Support is confused and telling you your G+ page is suspended and trying to get you to change email so you can verify/merge G+ BUT you don't even want to verify/merge and that was not the point of your support inquiry. You contacted PLACES support.

AND YOU SHOULD NOT even try to verify because Places is suspended and the listing is now unverified and broken. Can you say "data problems?" Google themselves say - do not merge problematic listings.

So why is support trying to force you to verify a broken suspended listing?

Google just seems to be getting lots of wires crossed between Places and G+ and it's getting pretty confusing.

Google Places was Suspended and suffered a large Local SERP Drop

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