Reached out to Google & had my listing changed back about 2 weeks ago. Now it's been relinked to the Cobalt site. Lots of not-so-kind words going through my head right now.
GM Dealers - Is your Cobalt Site Linked to Your Places Page?
- Thread starter Brent Palen
- Start date
I'd be mad too. We just dropped our primary site with VinSolutions and made the move back to Cobalt about 3 weeks ago. That means we definitely have a lot of work ahead to get it strong. Anyways, I asked our Account Rep about this, and he told me it was a move on GM's behalf, not Cobalt. So maybe reach out to your GM Rep?
@Josh, @Kyle, and all others participating on this thread. Believe me I would go ballistic as well, when still in a dealer body. So we initialized some high-priority research on the issues raised and that the following will explain what we found.
From the get-go and I want to make this point here really clear: Cobalt is 100% clear that YOU own your Google Places page. Cobalt does not have access to any claimed business page at anytime.
As we know Google started early this year on enhancements and updates to their Google Places platform. Since these changes the Google forums in multiple verticals have been exploding with comments from businesses experiencing the same issues the dealers on this string are experiencing. There were suddenly "dentist offices" being claimed as "insurance agencies", and we all can agree on Cobalt is not serving this vertical.
What may be confusing is that during the same time period Cobalt introduced GM’s iMR Listings program. As @Aaron and @Billfred pointed out the program was designed to support these dealers who had NOT claimed their listings to make sure they got the traffic coming to Google Places and nearly 100 other directory sites. GM dealers were informed of the program in advance and can opt-out at any time, or just claim their Google Places page. The program only applies to UNCLAIMED directory listings. The program is a great success for dealerships who hadn’t claimed their sites with a significant increase in their phone and web traffic.
We want to emphasize the occurrences like disappearing Google reviews, access denied to your Google place page and rearrangement of Google’s business categories is related to Google’s platform changes and not with Cobalt. Google has been responsive to fixing issues we have been aware of. If dealers aren’t getting a timely response from Google they can contact their advocate and we will work to escalate their solution with Google.
From the get-go and I want to make this point here really clear: Cobalt is 100% clear that YOU own your Google Places page. Cobalt does not have access to any claimed business page at anytime.
As we know Google started early this year on enhancements and updates to their Google Places platform. Since these changes the Google forums in multiple verticals have been exploding with comments from businesses experiencing the same issues the dealers on this string are experiencing. There were suddenly "dentist offices" being claimed as "insurance agencies", and we all can agree on Cobalt is not serving this vertical.
What may be confusing is that during the same time period Cobalt introduced GM’s iMR Listings program. As @Aaron and @Billfred pointed out the program was designed to support these dealers who had NOT claimed their listings to make sure they got the traffic coming to Google Places and nearly 100 other directory sites. GM dealers were informed of the program in advance and can opt-out at any time, or just claim their Google Places page. The program only applies to UNCLAIMED directory listings. The program is a great success for dealerships who hadn’t claimed their sites with a significant increase in their phone and web traffic.
We want to emphasize the occurrences like disappearing Google reviews, access denied to your Google place page and rearrangement of Google’s business categories is related to Google’s platform changes and not with Cobalt. Google has been responsive to fixing issues we have been aware of. If dealers aren’t getting a timely response from Google they can contact their advocate and we will work to escalate their solution with Google.
Thanks for reaching out. I think you may be missing the point of this thread though. The complaints I've seen in this thread are from dealers that have had their Google Places pages changed even though their listings HAVE BEEN CLAIMED, myself included. Our listing has been claimed for about 2 years and this still happened...twice. How do you explain that?
After this thread was started, I went through and corrected my listing that I claimed many years ago. It took several days for Google to finally update it but I did see that it was corrected. After reading the thread tonight, I went back to double check and found that it had been changed AGAIN! I've changed it again so I will patiently wait for the correction to go through the proper channels.
@Kyle and @Joel… I have a few more updates on this matter and I would like you to contact your Cobalt Advocate and tell them you’d want to opt-out of the GM Directory Listings Program to avoid Google's bug once again overwriting your data.
Further I want to clear up once more (even so I sound repetitive) what we have found in our research as well as is confirmed by many industry professionals outside ADP | Cobalt, like PCG’s CEO Brian Pasch on his ISM blog and the today posted video response.
Brian's Blog Post: When Google Places Breaks Everyone Wants To Point Fingers - Internet Sales Managers Community
Brian's Video Post: Google Places Automotive Directory Update Requires Your Immediate Action - Internet Sales Managers Community
The facts: I know there is a lot of confusion around the Google Places updates and hopefully this will add some clarification albeit it may not alleviate your frustration.
There is a GM iMR initiative through Cobalt that was developed to provide accurate, consistent and searchable dealership information on listing sites. It was designed and set up for dealerships that did NOT have claimed and verified listings on Google.
Unfortunately there is a bug on Google’s side so when data was pushed out through Google, we have seen a small number of claimed and verified pages get overwritten, like the URL examples Brian Pasch provided. Google is aware of the bug in the execution of the bulk uploads and are looking for a fix.
In the interim please log into your claimed and verified listing, update the data that was overwritten and push submit. Keep in mind this can update within the day or could take longer per Google.
http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120...
We were told by Google that claimed and verified listings would not be impacted, unfortunately we now know that a small number of them were. Please escalate through Google so they can do their due diligence to fix your page and let your Advocate know so we can escalate through our contacts to get resolution as quickly as possible.
Anyway we slice it, bottom line is; this is an admitted Google issue and we have to work together to get it addressed correctly.
Further I want to clear up once more (even so I sound repetitive) what we have found in our research as well as is confirmed by many industry professionals outside ADP | Cobalt, like PCG’s CEO Brian Pasch on his ISM blog and the today posted video response.
Brian's Blog Post: When Google Places Breaks Everyone Wants To Point Fingers - Internet Sales Managers Community
Brian's Video Post: Google Places Automotive Directory Update Requires Your Immediate Action - Internet Sales Managers Community
The facts: I know there is a lot of confusion around the Google Places updates and hopefully this will add some clarification albeit it may not alleviate your frustration.
There is a GM iMR initiative through Cobalt that was developed to provide accurate, consistent and searchable dealership information on listing sites. It was designed and set up for dealerships that did NOT have claimed and verified listings on Google.
Unfortunately there is a bug on Google’s side so when data was pushed out through Google, we have seen a small number of claimed and verified pages get overwritten, like the URL examples Brian Pasch provided. Google is aware of the bug in the execution of the bulk uploads and are looking for a fix.
In the interim please log into your claimed and verified listing, update the data that was overwritten and push submit. Keep in mind this can update within the day or could take longer per Google.
http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120...
We were told by Google that claimed and verified listings would not be impacted, unfortunately we now know that a small number of them were. Please escalate through Google so they can do their due diligence to fix your page and let your Advocate know so we can escalate through our contacts to get resolution as quickly as possible.
Anyway we slice it, bottom line is; this is an admitted Google issue and we have to work together to get it addressed correctly.
Unreal, this has just happened to my CLAIMED listing I have had claimed for years.
Blake, can you email me - reduke at dukeauto dot com
Thanks,
Eley
Had this problem two weeks ago. My "claimed listing" was edited by GM, didn't know that was possible.Talked with a Google Places rep at DMSC conference and was told to go to Places Help and click on My Listing has incorrect information.
My listing was fixed in two days.
The Google Rep also said they are working to beef up their support staff by the end of the year. Thank the good Lord!
If you have any questions hit me up.
Blake, can you email me - reduke at dukeauto dot com
Thanks,
Eley
So VJ, what about dealers that have separate websites and places page? Cobalt/GM/Google claimed a place for dukeauto.net and now that is overriding our places page for dukeauto.com we have had for years and screwing our search results? Also, we don't have a log in or password to get into the places page that was done by Cobalt/GM/Google. So how can we get that. I now have 2 places page and do not want the Cobalt/GM/Google set up one, I only want the one I have had. Cobalt hasn't given me any help except your same response blaming it on Google. Google is telling me 4-6 weeks to merge the 2 places.
This is a Cobalt and GM issue since it had to be initiated from them for Google to do this. So I think you all need to help the dealers since you were part of creating this problem!
Somebody needs to call the Whitehouse. It's an election year. Maybe Obama will fire this CEO, also.
