Sphinn - Change Your Address In The Google Plusbox In 5 Simple Steps

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Change Your Address In The Google Plusbox In 5 Simple Steps

Went Hot: March 26, 2008 - 2:47 am
Posted By: earlpearl 465 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Local & Maps

An excellent article, Mike, and excellent suggestions. It is an unfortunate byproduct of universal search and multiple algo's that the effort by Google to provide "better information" is at times providing "inferior and erroneous" information.

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from mblumenthal 465 days ago #

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Simple steps if you are a rocket scientist! Most business folks would find my instructions beyond reasonable. Changing addresses in the age of the internet should not be this hard.
Mike B

from Skitzzo 465 days ago #

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To be honest, I've stopped using Google for phone numbers. We were having a fence put around our yard, and I was looking for fence companies. The first 3 I called were wrong numbers!

from earlpearl 465 days ago #

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It is problematic for website owners and webmasters that this continues to occur. It is one of those consistently reappearing comments in the Google Groups for Business Owners that never gets answered. The site to which I've communicated suggestions still has erroneous plusbox address information. I guess this has been occurring for about 1/2 a year and specifically about 4 months since it was first reported in google groups for business owners and since a google rep said they would check it out.

They never got a response from google.

While the suggestions in your article are "educated guesses" they seem to bear a reasonable effort at correcting the bad information, if only because they touch on topics referenced in various patents described by google and referenced at seobythesea.

Its ironic that universal search, which google introduced as an effort to improve results for the search visitor includes built in erroneous information that causes problems for some webmasters/site owners and problems for their customers (as reported by the site owner who I have tried to help).

Too bad Google doesn't help a bit with this problem.

from mblumenthal 465 days ago #

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What has always struck me as bizarre is that Google can have the PlusBox so wrong and Local One Box right ON THE SAME record. If they can figure one out, why would they not be able to figure the other out? It is interesting to me that they encourage end user input but then have a tendency to ignore it on occasion.

Mike

from CavanMoon 465 days ago #

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Excellent suggestions! We have a case that's exactly what you're describing, Mike. The Local One Box is at the top of the page and perfect, yet the PlusBox is attached to the first listing with the wrong address, phone number and url. Perhaps a solution could be implemented into Webmaster Tools similar to the recent addition of Sitelinks. Your article got me thinking about an older post on SEOmoz about the use of address tags in html. Not sure if it'll make a difference, but it's still good to know.

from earlpearl 465 days ago #

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There seems to be another solution in the works that Mike referenced to me earlier today;

from MiriamEllis 465 days ago #

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Step 6: Hire an SEO who is actually going to be able to accomplish steps 1-5 for you.

Like you say, Mike, most small business owners are going to get crosseyed reading that list, as thorough and good as it is. It's brilliant that you figured this out! But Google needs to make this easier. Agreed.

Miriam

from planetc1 464 days ago #

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On the flipside, for years, one of my sites has had links to a bunch of local businesses. As a result we get about 3-4 calls weekly for someone thinking they are calling another business in the neighborhood. I'm assuming our number has gotten mixed into some of the sites talked about.