Google Places Fix Coming in Days…Months…Years?

Last week we published a number of posts regarding the business listings problem found on Google Places. There have been a number of occurrences where businesses had been list as "Permanently Closed" when in fact they were very much open for business.

Quickly Google responded, apologizing for the flaw in their system and said "we've been working on improvements to the system to prevent any malicious or incorrect labeling. These improvements will be implemented in the coming days."

Well it's been over a week, and so far no improvements have been spotted. In fact, it seems that the problem is actually getting worse! Mr. Blumenthal was nice enough to follow up with the Google Places issue and check whether things were actually getting better for small businesses. What did he find? This time around, Google Places marked his business as "permanently closed" after only ONE CLICK!

After an email to Google, he received a response that Google was "still working on the labeling improvements regarding this issue."

Yes, I understand that Google is an incredibly large organization. Google Places is just one of their many applications, and it takes time to implement changes. But, don't give false hope to the many small businesses who rely on your product day in and day out when in fact you can't follow through on your claim.

What Small Businesses Need

1. Complete control over their business listings
2. Timely updates
3. The ability to correct errors should they occur for any reason

Don't you think that the owner of a small business knows best whether their business is open or not? Then why should we rely on the masses to provide this information?

If my business moves, I want to be able to change my business information as quickly as possible. If I spot an error in my business listing, I want to fix it immediately or I want to talk to someone who can.

At Yext, we understand the needs of small businesses because we are a small business. PowerListings gives customers complete control over their listings, the ability to update their listings across our network partners almost immediately, and a customer service team completely devoted to making sure all business's listings are accurate and up-to-date.

We know how important business listings are to every small business, and that's why we've set out on our mission to make business listings simple!