Closed, Says Google, but Shops’ Signs Say Open

[onehandle]

Source: New York Times

In mid-August, Jason Rule learned some surprising news about the coffee shop that he owns and operates in Hays, Kan.: the place had closed for good. Not in the real world, where it is thriving. Coffee Rules Lounge was listed for a few days as “permanently closed” on Google Maps. During that time, anyone searching for a latte on a smartphone, for instance, would have assumed the store was a goner.

“We’re not far from Interstate 70,” said Mr. Rule, “and I have no doubt that a lot of people running up and down that highway just skipped us.”

In recent months, plenty of perfectly healthy businesses across the country have expired — sometimes for hours, other times for weeks — though only in the online realm cataloged and curated by Google. The reason is that it is surprisingly easy to report a business as closed in Google Places, the search giant’s version of the local Yellow Pages.

On Google Places, a typical listing has the address of a business, a description provided by the owner and links to photos, reviews and Google Maps. It also has a section titled “Report a problem” and one of the problems to report is “this place is permanently closed.” If enough users click it, the business is labeled “reportedly closed” and later, pending a review by Google, “permanently closed.” Google was tight-lipped about its review methods and would not discuss them.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/technology/closed-in-error-on-google-places-merchants-seek-fixes.html

[Historic NY]

1. I hate Google entire format......

someone kept associating my (government) direct office phone number for every major local government office in its ranking....hence if you wanted the court or police my phone would ring. Apparently to google just because it was the same address in a complex it was close enough. This drove me crazy for months, until I asked a caller how they found my number. Apparently from looking it up on google. I went crazy with those 2-3 am calls. Sure enough it had this number listed in their rankings. It wouldn't let me change it, finally after asking and reporting it, I was able to access it with my own google account to make the change.

[Pab Sungenis]

2. This happened with our community theater.

Enough people reported us "closed" when we were between productions or in rehearsal that they tagged us as permanently closed. Took a lot of effort to get them to correct it.