Hello dear Googlers and my Local Guides fellows,
A few days back, I open Google maps and I was terrified because almost all places are marked as “Temporarily closed”.
For example on this screenshoot, from city which I know very well, I marked places which are incorrectly marked as “Temporarily closed”.
As you can see, it is majority of places. Why I am upset? Because, during COVID-19 situation is very important to help local business, but this situation with false information about opening can be devastating for small/medium bussiness.
Can you find a quick solution how to revert these changes?
PS: This problem affecting whole Czech republic, not just this city.
My point here is that “something” happened in the past days and almost all places was set to “temporarily closed”, even places like parks, parking places, lookout towers, etc… In general, this places are not claimed so Google My Business was not the way how someone set this “temporarily closed” atribute.
Hello @Rohlik This is a global change by Google for some reported categories in each country.
Also as @PaulPavlinovich mentioned each business can use GMB to set itself as “Temporary Closed”.
But also if you see a not verified listing (that means it hasn’t GMB admin) which is wrongly marked as “Temporary Closed” and you have local knowledge about it and you’re sure it is still open, the solution is what you did for some: Edit and mark it as open. In most cases it will apply instantly because Google considered the system mistakes in such cases.
@Amiran I see…It would be very difficult for Local Guides in my country to open all places which are incorrectly marked as temporarily closed. Every hour in that status local business losing potential customers (money). So time is the key.
In my point of view, more preferable way would be to let Google do that and update all categories which can be opened according to local bylaw in each country.
In most cases, the closures are true those are based on the general decisions of each country and Google found by official data or by the news. Google tracks the situation of each country and if it changes and general closure ends, then they’ll apply it globally on the map.
So for false closures, those are limited cases, it depends on local knowledge to mark them as open. Yes, this is difficult for one Local Guide because he/she doesn’t local knowledge about all places and also doesn’t have time to put.
On the other hand, if you see one (or more) especial category wrongly marked as temporary closed in your country, then you can explain specifically about it and inform Googlers in this case.
But note that we only edit the map as we can, other things depend on many other parameters that aren’t in our hand. So take it easy. If this isn’t a “category wrong closure” and it limits so several cases, in my opinion, it isn’t so urgent as you think, because:
The system tells it is Temporarily closed, so people know it may open every time based on local announcements.
The icon is still on the map and it is still searchable so people can access the contact data to find more ways for ordering.
Your concern is about helping local businesses, but note that most of the people know the status of the local businesses in their neighborhood. So they first rely on their local knowledge, not the map
I have found the same in my city, all the POI’s with the status TEMPORALLY CLOSED.
I think that by default, and according to the regions, Google Maps has set this status according to the quarantine for the Covid-19.
What I have done, was editing the places that with the pass of the days I know certainly that have re-open, with a simple edition wich allows you to change the status as Open as regularly.
I made a quick search related to the POIs you mentioned. In the screenshots bellow you may see that some are “Open” and indeed some are “Temporary Closed”.
Hey @MashaPS thank you for your time dealing with this problem.
I already marked some of the places as open during yesterday. But if we move to another part of city, for example here, then we see many places “temporarily closed”. Many of these places are in fact open.
From my point of view, categories like Observation deck, post office, Pharmacy, parking lots, Gas station, Hypermarkets, Grocery stores, Cosmetics stores, Parks, Playgrounds, Cemetery, Scenic spots or ATM are inaccurately marked as temporarily closed in whole Czech republic and should be open.
If I can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. I can probably provide full list of categories which should be opened in our country by Google.
The issue is that, while the POIs were closed “by law”, there is not the evidence that every poi has been reopened. That’s why one of the most common question when you contribute on a POI now is about the possibility to have shopping inside
So time is the key.
thank you for your time dealing with this problem.
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