Amongst the many challenges that the sapnagroup SEO team faces, let me mention just a few – Coping with client’s unique needs, lack of client’s co-operation, the need for constant upgradation, bridging communication gaps over the vast geographical distance, time differences, and a lot more.
And amidst the chaos, there is still the element of surprise each day, not knowing when we will stumble upon a situation with no explanation for Google’s erratic behaviour thanks to its countless algorithms.
For the last 3 years, the SEO ship has been sailing in the mercy of Google’s unpredictable weather and pretty much sailing strongly in its winds. And one such catastrophe we had to face was Google maps.
Google maps, was a turning point in the history of search engine optimisation and some of us took most of the advantage as long as Google had given us the liberty and ease to optimise Google maps to meet our every need.
And then one fine day in 2009, Google maps turns on the high security and authentication alerts.
http://www.searchengineguide.com/jeff-howard/6-common-google-maps-problems-the-soluti.php
Here is our personal experience -
We had submitted all the Tinies branches (Address and Telephone number) to the Google maps awhile back and they were all working fine.
While we were checking for the Google map positioning we could see that most of the branches stopped showing up. We realised that Google had changed their policies and we saw the need to resubmit all the branch listings again.
As we know that once we resubmit, Google provides a 5 digit PIN number to verify the listings either by Phone option, SMS or by post.
This involved coordinating with 30 branches in the UK to get 30 verification PINS to verify their individual listings. And the most difficult task was we could only get in touch with the branches through a single source, who would in turn contact each of the branches.
We opted to get the PIN by phone since this was the fastest way to get our listing up and running. The branches were informed that they would be getting a call from Google at a particular time (i.e. within 5 minutes after submission). We submitted the branches, but unfortunately none of the branches got the call. What was the reason we still have not established, whether it was the geographic gap, or time difference.
We tried re-submitting. Every time we did, it was never successful. And nothing worked for us as we expected to. None of the branches reverted to us with the PIN number. The Tinies team were hassled with this procedure, since they were all expecting the phone call from Google and they weren’t getting any. They had very little faith that Google would actually call or if we were doing it right…
To make things simpler we decided to choose to get the PIN by postcard option, so that the branches do not get disturbed. All the branches were informed about this. It took more than 3 weeks for the branches to get the PIN. But only a few branches reverted. And among those only few PIN’s worked while others were invalid. The number of emails between the SEO team and client, going to and fro was stressful for both parties, for a whole month.
Finally, we had to let the client get into this personally. We explained the Google maps submission process clearly to the client and how we actually do it. The client himself interacted with the branches, explained them the procedure and submitted each of the listings. He did exactly what we had been doing all the while. Strangely, valid PINs were being delivered instantly via phone calls. With very minimum difficulty everything worked fine. Whether it’s got anything to do with the geographic location and/or the IP being tracked, we still do not know…
We realised that if there had been proper co-ordination between us and the clients this wouldn’t had been such a big issue.
— Trupti
Bottom line – there usually is a solution to almost everything, no matter how difficult. Stressing over Google’s inconsistencies is definitely not the answer.
To avoid upsetting the client we try not to get them involved in our process. But sometimes the final solution lies in getting the client to co-operate with us and jointly solve issues!