[garry22]

Garry, do you think I have given away enough information this afternoon and anymore
should be invoiced?  Tongue

Why not?   Actually, this is a really good discussion. Places is something I have neglected as I'm in a rural area and most work is in Brum (15-20 miles away!). Pre Penquin I ranked above all of the Brum local results so it did not matter then.

The problem is expecting logic from Google employees (I'm sure they think everyone is in their teens). If they had their way we would all scrap our PCs and just use mobile. I have to say though, their voice activated search stuff looks interesting. Maybe the death of traditional keywords?

[Robert Watson]

A few months ago my phone went and displayed Mountain View California, I thought that's Google. A woman said she was verifying a few detail for Google Places, an hour later all the listings had completely changed. The three sites that held top position for years have all been kicked off. 

[Garyj]

Ohh don't tell me that, only just getting used to this new fangled typing business.

I did a little campaign for me yesterday using a search term for Hampshire and it ranked
in 2 hours position 3 first page Google. I added some good extra content to it and this
afternoon it is on page 2. Tried again today on a different site with a very easy keyword
and got nothing!

Google Places has out foxed everybody even the 'gurus'. I did a course on it which was very
thorough but the bottom line was no one had a bloody clue what was going on as the
goalposts changed at least every month. I have a few sites ranking at number one in Google
at the moment and a few that are number one in Places but each day I expect to see them
disappear and as Craig said just count your blessings while they are there!

[Andy Hogarth]

i had this too, I had about 15 running at one point for each keyword and got suspended lol

Alex (tacca website guy) sorted mine straight away Alan

[Carpet Dawg]

Yeah, google is bit of a joke really.

i'm also not appearing in the places anymore.

In my local search, which is a seven box at the moment there are 2 chemdrys, the first one is a bloody johnston hire shop (for god sake!!!), another is an ugly looking one page website that looks like it has been created using someones feet, and another is a simple little site created using the drag and drop MrSite software << how this is in the local search is beyond me!!

And half those sites dont even have fully completed listings!

So I applauded you google! A job weldone mate i'm sure your giving Joe the surfer what he wants

[Carpet Dawg]

i had this too, I had about 15 running at one point for each keyword and got suspended lol

Alex (tacca website guy) sorted mine straight away Alan

Any tips Andy?

Just checked my account with google places and I also have the pending review thingy. Says it can take several weeks, not sure how long the review has been in place. My google account isn't my main account so i never check it.

I only have one carpet cleaning website and my address and tel number is exactly the same one as whats on the site and all my citations including yell. Its my real address, not a postbox or anything.

Going to email the buggers.

[Paul Moss]

When it first kicked in years ago i had 9 outof  the 10 positions on google place map, i shared the tip with a few and it worked great for 18months but then some one bubbled me and they suspended them. These days you can only have one.
Dont be fooled they may say they are looking into it but in reality its suspended and it wont get back online

[wynne jones]

And half those sites dont even have fully completed listings!

So I applauded you google! A job weldone mate i'm sure your giving Joe the surfer what he wants

This is my beef. They say they want to give people a good search experience, but that blatantly ain't their primary goal.

The old adage, take notice of what they do not what they say is especially the case with GOOGLE.

[Andy Hogarth]

I don't mate, I didn't even know till Alex was redoing my site he noticed it and sorted it, Give him a bell and see what he says, really sound bloke 07771531685

[robert meldrum]

Do we REALLY need to depend on Google to be found by prospects

[wynne jones]

Do we REALLY need to depend on Google to be found by prospects

No, I think it's best to have multiple sources for business, but if you hit a rich vein you should milk it for all it's worth till it dries up.

[Andy Hogarth]

my websites are all over with google, one minute top then gone, I gave up relying on google a long time ago, spoke to a local window cleaner who had thrown about 900 at a web designer to get top of google, he was there for about 6 weeks then some kind of change took place now he's about 10th if he's lucky

Mailshots to previous customers are working best for me the last few months, cleanersmate has been a godsend

[Mike Halliday]

They are discussing this on the American forums, people are losing reviews or thier listings disapearing. looks like google are playing around with google places.

[garry22]

The problem is Mike (and I say this without any sarcasm) that Google is not sure what it is doing yet.

They are still trying to match Facebook for the social stuff, hence the change from Places to +1. They just can't seem to find a formula that works.

Until they get this settled, results like this are going to be the norm rather than the exception.

Andy H,

Do you mean that you had multiple listings, lost them and then got them back again?

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Google has been good for me but I must say I find it all very frustrating these days, there really does not seem to be any pattern, it's all very secretive and difficult to plan.

Best not to rely on it.

I'm searching more on Bing these days, it seems better in a lot of ways.

Cheers

Doug

[Andy Hogarth]

Just the 1 now Gary 

I had a google map account for various keywords, used to be great when only my business details and map came up all the time.

Personally I think google mess about with it so that nobody can rely on that top spot without paying them for it!!

[Gabriel Nagy]

They are very rich but when you ask them or email them about issues you get nothing back or have to wait long time...sometime was very disappointed...

[Allan Simmons]

I don't know if this will help anyone else but it may be worth a try for you too.

I spoke to Google this morning about something in a PPC Ad campaign and mentioned that the Location extension on the Doncaster Campaign was  no longer working as my Google places for Doncaster had been suspended.  They asked me loads of questions about the websites and our addresses for the google places and also looked at the settings in the Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield campaigns for for where I wanted them to be displayed.  Cutting a long story short(ish) they put me on hold for almost 10 minutes and when they came back to me said that's all sorted it should all go live again shortly.  The approved status has returned to the Google place location extension in Google Ad's and also in the Google places account the Doncaster place has also now changed to Active.  We'll wait and see.

[wynne jones]

I don't know if this will help anyone else but it may be worth a try for you too.

I spoke to Google this morning about something in a PPC Ad campaign and mentioned that the Location extension on the Doncaster Campaign was  no longer working as my Google places for Doncaster had been suspended.  They asked me loads of questions about the websites and our addresses for the google places and also looked at the settings in the Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield campaigns for for where I wanted them to be displayed.  Cutting a long story short(ish) they put me on hold for almost 10 minutes and when they came back to me said that's all sorted it should all go live again shortly.  The approved status has returned to the Google place location extension in Google Ad's and also in the Google places account the Doncaster place has also now changed to Active.  We'll wait and see.

Money talks. 

[Allan Simmons]

Money talks. 
[/quote]

Exactly!  Funny how they 'reactivated' when they realised it was connected to a PPC campaign.