A few quick things about the new Local Pack update Blumenthal is calling the Local Stack (so much for all my pushing of the Local 3 Pack).
More about the Local Stack
Dashboard
Why Google My Business Bulk Listings Become Disabled
UPDATE: I spoke with another Google rep today about a separate issue but asked about Disabled/Pending listings. She told me the same thing the previous rep told me but went into more detail. She stated that this is a new tactic Google is using in order to combat the rampant spammers who attempt to take control of G+ listings or make fake listings.
What the Google team does is make sure the business website, Google Plus page and any Search items are exactly the same for each listing. If the website has a phone number ending in 5432 but the G+ page has a number ending in 5431, the listing is marked as spam and goes under a manual review. Once the spam team reviews the listing, it can be reinstated if the information is corrected.
This is welcomed news and shows how serious Google is about getting information 100% correct all the time. Again this is a brand new tactic and seems to be working well, although it is a pain for those of us in the bulk feeds. At least we will know if our information needs to be corrected and why. Just make sure your business information matches exactly everywhere it is listed!
Original Post: Those of us who frequently spend time in the Google My Business Dashboard know of its issues all too well. While the support Google provides for GMB is much appreciated, it leaves something to be desired. Phone support is shoddy at best and there are continuous issues with listings which confuse us all.
Google Un-verifying GMB Listings
UPDATE:Â Since I posted this morning, Professor Maps got an update from Google with a copy of the warning email they send and SEL did a nice write up about the issue as well.
For those of you who work in Google My Business accounts often, this may be news. I was working in a GMB Bulk Feed account yesterday and noticed several of the thousands of listings in the account had a notice of “Disconnected“. The notice said, “This location can’t be connected to Google right now. If this problem continues for more than two days, try deleting the location and adding it again or contact support.”
Google Pigeon Theory
I’ve had this theory for a little while now and I’m going to finally let it out of the box. Inspired by a great read on Andrew Shotland’s blog, he spits a few theories of his own. Andrew has been most vocal about how crappy the Pigeon algortithm has been and that G needs to clean it up. One of his theories on why the SERP’s are so bad is the “the combination of overweighting of Google’s brand algorithm and the narrowing of the radius for many local queries could have pushed some of these big brands out of the local packs”.