How to Tell How a Google Local Listing Became Unverified
Another Google MapMaker Regional Lead was talking with me about a page for a business that recently came unverified and vanished from the search results.
You can see that the Google+ page is unverified because it lost its verified checkmark and just left a G+ page but it’s not connected to Maps so it won’t rank in the 3-pack.
Since this was a recent change I have the advantage of using Google’s cache to see what happened. Here’s the steps I took:
- Search the URL on Google for the G+ page (https://plus.google.com/+KingDavidPizzaVaughan)
- Hit the drop-down arrow beside it that says “cached”
- This will bring up a blank-looking page. Right-click and hit “view page source”
- Press CTRL+F and search for CID. It will be a long string of numbers and you want what comes in between the %3D and %
- Insert the CID into the MapMaker URL format and you’ll end up with http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=90&cid=6356679680116645113
- In MapMaker it will show you that this feature got deleted because someone marked it as a duplicate of another listing.
- In order to be able to click on anything you must be logged in to Google. If I click on “view original” you can see the listing that it was marked a duplicate of.
As Linda Buquet pointed out on the forum, these are 2 different businesses. King David Laffa & Grill has a different phone number, a different website and, most importantly, a separate entrance that you can see on Street View.
Looks like someone messed up here! Never a dull moment in the Local SEO world.
I’m not 100% convinced that the restaurant side by side is the exact reason the place was marked as a duplicate – especially considering the different name, website, and phone number. It seems very logical – but I wouldn’t say this is THE answer. What do you think?
I’m not sure why it was marked as a duplicate (it doesn’t say) and it doesn’t make it clear if it was Google or a user. But someone did mark it and remove it. I found this argument about the business from early last year: https://maps.google.com/mapmaker?gw=55&editids=7vW4_klvR7y32S-dZ8
Hi Joy – thanks for your tip. When I tried this on my wife’s business google plus search I couldn’t find a CID string that looked remotely like you described when I looked at the page source. However, her business listing is in the 3-pack so I guess I shouldn’t worry too much.
Cliff – if you want to post the URL to her G+ page I can see if it’s there. Is it a local page that’s connected to Google Maps? Those are the only ones that have CID numbers. Brand G+ pages don’t have them.