Google Places Page Changes

[tvinson]

We had a client(dentist) hire another marketing firm(without our knowledge) and due to some Google page changes they made, their website lost a #1 ranking, was disassociated with the places page and was placed at result #10 below all the local results.

We quickly made some changes and were able to bring them up to #2 within a few days and restore their Google page after about a week, but the tracking/forwarding phone number the marketing company was using shows up on the page despite attempts to contact Google through updating the business in places management as well as submit the phone number as incorrect while providing the correct phone number.  And because the client fired that marketing company, the phone number will no longer be active in a few days. Of course this is very important for a dental office.

Has anyone else had problems with the speed and updating Google Places/Plus pages for businesses?  What's the most efficient way to make changes like this?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi TVinson,

You mention that you've attempted to contact Google. Have you actually phone them? I'm hearing quite good things about the speed at which some issues have been resolved after a successful phone call. Check out this post from Matthew Hunt:

http://www.smallbusinessonlinecoach.com/blog/google-places-support-live-real-person-2-minutes/

Also, you need to be sure that you are cleaning up any references to the call tracking number, not only because they are taboo in Local, but because you don't want anything but clean NAP (name-address-phone) anywhere on the web for the client. If the bad phone number was published or aggregated in multiple places, you need to clean up those citations to prevent them from being picked up again by Google.

[tvinson]

That helps a lot!  I've never been able to reach Google by phone.

Thanks for the local advice, I appreciate it.

[MiriamEllis]

My pleasure! Hope it works out for you.