It’s great that you can ‘advertise’ your website on Google for free.
And with a bit of SEO, you can get good rankings for words that your customers are searching for.
Google even gives us tips and advice on how we can design our site so we have control on what information is listed in their SERPs.
But what happens when you see something wrong on Google? Who from Google can you contact? ‘Advertising’ on their service is free – should you even be able to contact them?
The US maps problem
About a month ago, I blogged about US maps in UK search results, and did a test to see if I could get them removed when they appeared in Google.co.uk’s search results.
As I said then, some of these maps issues have actually been resolved. But this was probably down to them being mentioned in high-profile blogs, which were then brought to Google’s attention.
Anyway, to keep the test fair I didn’t mention the search queries that were displaying the rogue US maps.
The example I highlighted in the blog was pubs in plymouth. Then I reported the following issues to Google via two methods:
Pub in Taunton – I reported this issue on the Google Maps Help Forum in the hope that someone from Google would see it – before the forum was updated earlier this year, this was a reliable way to get these issues resolved.
Pub in Dorchester – I reported this issue using the ‘Dissatisfied? Help us improve’ link at the bottom of the Google SERPs.
But, both of these approaches failed – the US maps issues still apply.
Are you affected?
If any listing for your pages are affected by this issue, you might not even care.
But a US map with a UK listing won’t inspire confidence and could reduce click-throughs from potential customers and users. And when your competitors are listed on the same page without a US map as part of their listing, there’s a chance you could lose out.
But, unlike most problems we see in search, there’s no easy resolution.
Unless you know of a better way?
Related posts:
