Does Google Hate Me?
Written March 12th, 2008 by Bart HubbardWhen Google first arrived on the Web, it was generally welcomed as a “good thing.” The innovations from that company have been far-reaching, even shaping how some use and view the Web. I know that I’ve benefited from Gmail, Google maps, Google analytics, and of course the ubiquitous search engine itself. But not all of Google’s work has had a positive impact on me and my sites.
Let me tell you a story about Google Maps and why I think Google hates me. About a year ago I received an angry communication from a physician who was annoyed that our Web site was “listing his phone number in Google”. After some investigation I learned that Google searches for “Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC” returned his phone number as the top Google Local result. I immediately explained to him that this was Google’s doing and not something we had explicitly requested. This did not mollify him in the least.
Over the next 12 months I embarked on a harrowing journey to have this mistake corrected. I scoured our site to ensure we had proper phone numbers listed (we did), the local phone directories were correct (they are), and I attempted to contact Google directly to discuss/complain/yell at them. It turned out that it’s not possible to contact Google directly these days. The best I could do was post on the Google Maps forums and hope a moderator took pity on me.
So what was their solution? As many of you would expect, they suggested I get a “Local Business Center” account and correct the listing myself. I don’t want to rant for 12 pages, so let me explain in a nutshell what I consider to be Google’s biggest shortfall with Google Local & Maps:
- The sources for the phone listing and maps are varied; they include Google’s crawled Web content, purchased phone directories, and purchased map databases
- The mechanism to correct invalid listings involves Google verifying you’re the actual “owner” of said listing. This is done by either mailing a postcard to the current listing address or the current phone number. Now imagine how you’ll correct a listing if the address and phone number lead to Timbuktu.
- Corrections that you successfully submit are supposed to become active in 4 weeks. I’m still waiting for some corrections that I submitted over 6 months ago.
- At any time, without warning, Google may update their algorithms, meaning that a whole new batch of listings will now be the top 10 results. This happened to me recently basically invalidating months of work.
- Once Google processes a request for a listing to be deleted, the order of the remaining listing results won’t necessarily be preserved. For example: I recently had a bad listing deleted after 3 months of work only to find that when it was immediately replaced by another incorrect listing (instead of merely shifting the #2 result up to the #1 spot).
- We are an academic medical center, and have over 130 locations, so you can imagine how much work is involved in tracking down the incorrect listings and correcting them. My guesstimate for the number of incorrect listings? 500 plus.
Throughout this ordeal I have made attempts to follow up with Google via their forums, but have received only boilerplate responses and silence. This issue is quite serious, as sometimes the volume of calls overwhelms secretaries at various clinics, which is impacting Duke’s bottom line. I’ve been contacted more than once by other healthcare institutions who have seen my complaints on the Google forums, and wanted to collaborate on strategies to resolve. I even heard from one colleague that they intended to involve their legal department to seek relief, but I never heard the outcome of that affair.
Now I’ve shared my pain, tell me about yours. Has anyone else been bitten by the Google Maps monster? If you haven’t, let this serve as a caution to keep your eye on it, and be prepared for a hard-fought battle.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Careful Bart … Big Brother is watching.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I’ve gone through the same process a half dozen times in the last year. The best results I’ve had have been in tracking down the ‘source’ phone number. Invariably the incorrect listing is coming from some random ‘white pages’ address consolidation directory site. Get them to correct/delete the listing and the resubmit their URL for reindexing. Two months later, check back and see if it fixed it.
Sticky, horrible and painful process. There has to be a better way.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Haha, you just brought back a nightmare. EXACT same situation. You can probably even find me ranting on the Google Maps boards.
I emailed them and told them which listing was incorrect and which was correct. They deleted the incorrect.. just making another incorrect take its place.
So I edited the information myself, and then had to confirm it. Problem… sure, you can call the number I put in the listing.. but good luck getting to me, the little ole Webmaster in a cubicle in the corner of the campus. So that didn’t work.
I edited again, and this time had them send me the postcard. Of course that takes a while to show up. I go online and confirm that it really is our address. And what’s the card say? It’ll be updated in something like 6-8 weeks!
It never was updated, either. Just an endless circle of canned responses and procedures that don’t work.
The people in the ambulatory clinic (the number listed) weren’t happy, but there’s literally nothing else we can do.
EDIT: Holy wahoo, I believe it’s correct now. Of course it’s after I leave. That’s the longest procedure ever.
But at least there’s hope for you guys, haha.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Oh, have I ever been there and done that. They really make it impossible. I actually got so far through the process that I got the postcard back and entered the code. It says it’s processed and complete, and the incorrect phone number STILL shows up. And try calling somebody there. You’ll have better luck trying to find hair on the top of my head.
March 19th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Same nightmare over here. Right down to the physician who’s personal number is listed.
I can’t even imagine how we’ll get our arms around it. Everytime I think I make some progress, an new incorrect listing shows up.
How are any of you with multiple locations attempting to confirm you are the owner? Phone obviously won’t work for every single number listed. We tried getting the mailroom to hold any postcards from google, but haven’t had good luck with that either.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
We have that problem, too. I understand why Google just won’t take our word for it, but the notification mechanism doesn’t work for organizations like ours.
March 21st, 2008 at 9:58 am
I’ve been in the same boat. If nothing else, I now have several experiences to share with the people berating me for not being able to keep Google in check.
Three times I have had to go through the change process. I have to travel from my office, which is not on campus, to three different locations in one of our hospitals where I have to wait for a phone call. The post card option just does not work.
All those Google employees and no one can answer a phone?!
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I’ve been in the same boat. Still trying to get Google to correct a few listings of ours that have been wrong for months. I did discover with the postcards that you can enter in a name or mailcode to try to direct the postcard to your office, but even after validation, no change. Someone notified me about a listing that had no ZIP code, so it’s impossible to get a postcard on that one. Even our very name (UT Southwestern) is wrong on many of the listings; sometimes it’s hyphenated, sometimes the acronym is spelled out, etc. So sorry to hear that everyone else is experiencing this too, but glad it wasn’t just that I was too dumb to figure out Google’s process.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
So the next question is – what can we, as a group, do about this problem? I would like to see this problem as an entire session at the next conference, with the goal of collecting a list of recommendations to be sent to Google. Thoughts?
March 25th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Good idea Bart, I think that’s an interesting idea. Maybe if we get enough people together we can get them to notice that – hey, your system is not easy or convenient to use AT ALL.