No option to claim listing in Google Places: country-wide issue

[debi_zyx]

Hi, All!

We were trying to advise a client about local SEO, and we ran into the issue of - their Google Places pages (yes, they have several, that's a separate issue) are "unclaimable."  Meaning - up at the top of the page there is neither a "Edit this page - Business Owner?" heading or a "Edit this listing - Owner-verified listing" heading.  When you try to claim it independently using the phone number (all pages have the same phone number, but different addresses), Google gives you "No address found for this phone number" and the option to now add a new page, which is not quite what we're looking for.  This is an Israeli location, and this appears to be an issue with a few other random Israeli pages I checked (I saw pages with neither heading option).  But a number of the Israeli pages have "Owner-verified listing."  How did they get it?

Any help would be much appreciated.  Thanks!

Regards,

Aviva

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Aviva, I see you started a thread at the Google Place Help Forum about this, which is exactly what I would have recommended doing. I cannot find any documentation of a situation similar to yours. You are either dealing with a bug, or a possible penalty of the account - that would be my best guess. I know my neighbors to the north (Canada) frequently bemoan the fact that they are under-served by Google Places, in comparison to the U.S., and the fact may be that non-US businesses are dealing with even more problems, bugs and exclusions than we are here. I'm really hoping you can get a Google rep to respond to your question as the scenario you are describing does not appear to be common. Good luck!

[debi_zyx]

Hi, Miriam!

Thanks for the response.  Still no answer at the Google Places help forum.  I think I may start a new thread with more of an attention catching title and see if that draws a Google rep.  It can't be an account penalty, because I've done a number of places searches and checked a good number of places pages (different genres and locales in Israel), and you either see "Owner-verified listing" or nothing.  I have not yet once seen "Business owner?"  And when I try to "claim" some of the unclaimed listings using telephone lookup, I continually get the response of "no business found..."  I've tried to input the phone number in the format they tell you to: 02-123-4567, and also in the format used on the Places page (with the international code) - +972 2-123-4567 - to no avail.  I'll keep this thread posted in the hopeful event that we find a solution....

Thanks!

[MiriamEllis]

Aviva - good luck, and yes, I'd love it if you could update this thread if you get a response. Maybe title your forum thread something like: Whole Parts Of Israel Excluded From Places? That might get a rep's attention.