Did you know that your business is listed on Google Maps?

Did you know that unscrupulous people can hijack you map listing and Steal your customers if you don’t protect your listing? Practically every small business is listed on Google Maps. This is great. Millions of people use Google everyday and they can now use it to search for local businesses. Google has become the digital answer to the printed yellow pages for many consumers. It’s easier, faster, and can provide more information for the consumer and it also offers the merchant a very inexpensive way to promote their business. Among other things, merchants can add photos and videos. It’s almost like getting a free full page ad in the telephone book or a free commercial on TV. Sounds great! The only problem is that it is possible for anybody to hijack your Google Map Business listing if you don’t take the necessary steps to protect it. Look How Easy it is to steal your Google Map Listing For those not familiar with Google Maps, navigate to Google. (You will need to be logged into a Google account to do this) Then pick a business type and city, for example “dog grooming + your city”. Click search and the top ten listings will appear beside a Google Map at the top of the page.  If you are one of these businesses in the top ten search results you are in a very enviable position. These are the businesses that will get the most attention from potential customers. These are the businesses that customers are going to call first or investigate further to learn more about the merchant. And since these businesses are in such an enviable position, these businesses are key targets for sabotage, hijacking, or both. Here’s how the bad guys do it

Go back to your results for the above search “dog grooming + your city”. Pick a listing toward the bottom of the list that doesn’t have an associated website and click on it. To make sure you pick an appropriate listing for this demonstration click on listing that has maps.google.com to the right of it instead of a web url. When you click on the business listing, an info page for the business will launch, if not click on more info. On this info page, right beneath the phone numbers are some links. One of the links says Edit. If you click on the Edit link a new page launches and there is a white balloon with another menu for the type of edits. They are:·          Move marker·          Edit Details·          Remove place·          Flag as inappropriate The malicious editing of any one of these details could severely harm your business. If somebody moved your map place marker customers might not be able to find you. If somebody flagged your listing as inappropriate it could turn into a real nuisance. And if somebody edited your details and changed your phone number or completely remove your business listing from the map, that could be catastrophic. Stealing Your Customers

Let’s say you have a local flower shop. You have an optimized business listing and you are in the top ten search results. Now let’s assume that there is an unscrupulous florist on page 2 of the Google Map listings and nobody is calling him. All he would have to do is click on the Edit Details of your Google Map listing and change your telephone number to his. Customers would think they are calling you, but they would be calling your competition and you would be losing business.  Or a malicious competitor could just remove your listing from the map. To do this, all they would have to do is click on Remove Place and have your listing removed from the map. One might think that nobody would do this because it would be so easy to catch the culprit. After all, if they hijack a listing, there information is now on the listing and they would be easy to catch. But this isn’t the case. Peruse the Google Maps Support Group forum and you will see that this kind of behavior is rampant. So What Can You Do to Protect Yourself

Before answering that question, another question might be why does Google allows this? I can’t really speak for Google but it is my guess that Google allows this to help the public at large. Maybe there is a school or store that is closed or has moved or changed phone numbers. A good person could edit the listing and update the information for to make the map more accurate. Google probably hopes there are more good people than bad people. Google might also permit this editing because it is relatively easy to prevent the problem. All you have to do to prevent somebody from tampering with your business listing on Google Maps is claim your business. Follow the same steps described above to edit your business listing, but instead of editing, click on Claim your Business and follow the steps.  When a business map listing has been claimed, if somebody tries to hijack it they will get a message: “This listing has been claimed in Local Business Center and can only be edited by the owner”. This should prevent most hijackings and other digital vandalism. So if you haven’t claimed your business do it now. Don’t delay. Do it before somebody else claims your business listing and prevents you from claiming it. The consequences of failing to act could be dire. Also, if you claim your business you can take the steps to optimize your Google Map listing so that it appears in the top ten Google Map search results, if it isn’t already there. More information on do this can be found at my website.

Is your Google Map Listing in the top ten search results?It could be. We can help.

Al Remetch
website: http://www.MyMapInfo.com
blog: http://www.MyMapInfo.wordpress.com

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