Google Is Now Notifying Page Managers When Business Data Changes in GMB
As of yesterday, it appears that Google is sending out e-mails to notify Google My Business (GMB) page managers when there is a suggested edit to their listing. Here’s what the e-mail looks like:
Here’s the suggested edit inside of the GMB dashboard:
From the e-mail Google gives you two options. You can either “Go To Listing” which will take you to the GMB dashboard, or you can select “Looks Good To Me” if the edit looks correct. Selecting “Looks Good To Me” also takes you to the GMB dashboard. From what I can tell there is no difference between the two options as far as what happens after you click them. Once in the dashboard you still need to take your action and accept or deny the edit.
FYI – You Don’t Control the Content on Your Listing
It’s really important to remember that you don’t have full control over the data that Google displays for your business. This is a perfect example of that. In this particular case, a user or a bot has suggested to Google that for some reason this business listing shouldn’t have a website. And when I checked the live listing the website had been removed before I even had a chance to approve or deny the edit. So always remember that you as the page owner or manager are only one piece of the data pie that feeds into GMB.
I think this is a great feature that serves the business owner well. It is also aligned with Google’s efforts to encourage users to login to GMB more frequently.
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Thanks for sharing Colan 🙂
You’re welcome Andy!
This is a big improvement. In the past it was almost like a game, with Google saying, in effect, “Something has been changed, but can you tell which thing(s) it was that changed?”
This should be much better!
Hi Tim, agreed. Most business owners aren’t logging into GMB on a regular basis, if at all. This will help catch changes quicker and allow the owner to take action sooner.
Before now, at least, even when you DID log into your GMB dashboard, all that you were told was that “some changes had been made” or something like that, but you weren’t told WHAT changes had been made. At least, that was my experience. This sounds better.
It seems strange that Google would allow others to delete a business’ website. A business owner probably should know what his website address is, and this seems like an unnecessary opportunity for competitors or troublemakers to cause havoc.
Hi Tzvi, this has been the case for many years. The plus side is at least the business owner will know now and have an opportunity to act quicker when an erroneous edit is made.
I’m hopeful this will tie into new Maps Q&A where business owner moderation is greatly needed.
Hi Carolyn, that would be ideal. As you are likely aware, currently the only Q&A notifications are VIA push notification in Google Maps.
Thanks for the update Colan! What are your thoughts on how this relates to spam? My fear is spammers will now get automated “someone removed your keyword stuffing!” emails and will be one click away from re-spamming their listing.
That’s a great point! It will be interesting to see what kind of an impact it has in that regard. My guess is not too much. Would love to hear about any cases you come across where you find yourself playing keyword stuffing ping-pong with a listing. In most of those cases you can escalate over at the GMB forum to try and take it to the next level.
Are we able to deny changes? My address was changed and now my page is suspended because it’s no longer a service area!
Usually you are only notified after the changes take place and are live already. Did someone change your address to something that’s not correct?
Yes, we’re a service business, and the change removed the service area and therefore suspended the account.
Today I noticed that one of our clients’ GMB listing had been “suspended” and we were never notified. The reason seems to have been because it needed to be re-verified, which seems very odd to me in light of the fact that I was verified long ago and has not moved for years.
Could this be a result of someone maliciously editing them in Maps as “closed” or something?
Hi Tim, I don’t think it would be due to it being reported closed. If that was the case the listing would have a “permanently closed” label on it and wouldn’t be suspended technically. But someone could have reported it as “spam” or “never existed”. Was this a “hard” or “soft” suspension?
I’m not sure I know the difference.
Hard suspension = listing removed from maps. Soft Suspension = listing removed from GMB but still live on maps in an unverified state.
Also: It offered me the option to verify it. When I accepted that offer, it said that since I have already proven ownership of the site it automatically verified it *AND IT CREATED A NEW GMB PROFILE*, with all the data intact including reviews (thank goodness) but leaving the old one still suspended.
Did I make things worse?
That’s really interesting! Sounds like you are good to go. I wouldn’t worry about anything. Just delete the old suspended listing from your dashboard.
It was a soft suspension – I think. I could still find the listing in Maps, but then again, I was logged into my Google account, which is one of the owners on the original listing
I think it’s a pretty common misconception that business owners have full authority over the information presented with their GMB listing so this is a good reminder that they need to be more proactive with it.
Hey Patrick,
Agreed. I’d put it up there in the top two or three misconceptions of all time that business owners have about GMB.
Thanks for the share, great article!
How big of an impact can this have on local business’? Positive or negative?
Hi Filip, Thank you! All in all this will have a pretty big impact. It’s a useful tool if used well. Otherwise, it’s just a method that Google is using to bring users back into the GMB interface.