Control

I wonder if people felt about the Yellow Pages the way we feel about Google now. Last week I did it. I got my business its 60th review, and now it is gone. Down with four other recent reviews that Google has decided to hide. The four negative reviews from non-clients those haunt me like a bad dream, but five of our recent positive ones, thrown in the crapper, and why? Because a machine decides so.

After this year I am not even sure people work at Google anymore. Earlier this year I saw my competitors all get to have map icons and I wanted my map icon back, but when I tried to set the location to the place on our business license, where our business is registered with the state, Google restricted my entire profile. I got it back, but it upset me and what should have been a 15 second conversation with a human turned into dancing like a monkey on videos for a machine.

Google does things how Google wants. Last night I wasted two hours searching for locations on my newly launched remarketing campaign to prove its showing up where I want. Last night they were nowhere to be found. This morning, they are exactly where all the documentation says they should be. UIs shouldn’t dramatically change overnight, but that’s Google. It’s made to frustrate the humans.

Back to the reviews. It is frustrating and doubly so because I realize how much I am playing catch-up. We started March around 40 reviews and are ending at 59 with 5 hidden. That is a pretty big jump and most of that was activating existing clients. It shows me how passive and ignorant I have been of my relationship building power. So losing those reviews does upset me.

It also upsets me that Google dings me for honestly trying to get a map pin at the location my business is registered with the city and state, but my competitors, who aren’t registered businesses, get to have a map pin at a 750 sq ft building because they pay to have a sign outside and they claim 17 years in business when there is little to no evidence of that fact and they claim 50 plus reviews on their website and Google shows 43. We might be in that last one together. Perhaps I should call them and see if they want to take down the machines together.