Hidden 'Rejected Edits'.

[Briggs]

Hello LGC,

Continuing on from one of my previous posts about edits being marked as not applied, a few weeks ago I decided to edit various places to remove the location descriptor. Most of which included the name of the suburb at the end of a listing (e.g. Target Mt. Druitt, The Cheesecake Shop Mount Druitt, McDonald's Wentworthville). Some get rejected, but others? Just over the past few days, many of these have come through in the form of notifications and an email advising "Your edit is live!" I always double-check just in case. And my gut instinct was right.

When I look back on the posting, I still see that the name has the name of the location, but now with the following under Suggest an Edit: Changes based on your edit have been published. I requested an edit to change the name from The Cheesecake Shop Mount Druitt to just The Cheesecake Shop, or McDonald's Granville just to McDonald's but although it says either the former or that the edit was live, it's still the same, more than 24 hours after it's been published!

This easily functions as a not applied in disguise, and Google Maps easily does not follow it's own representation guidelines.

I know not to take things too personally, otherwise I would've been discouraged a long time ago from Google Maps in the first place (despite the fact that I've only been in the Local Guides program for just about six months now). Let's encourage consistency and following our own guidelines. I await fair improvements as time passes by. Besides, Google's most recent update emphasises the white stroke of its lettering now so that's pretty nice.

Onwards with innovation and improvement! Let's continue the journey together.

[MWJones · Accepted solution]

The problem you describe is not that your edit was rejected, it was likely approved, published but then REVERTED by the business owner on Google My Business (GMB) claimed listings. Some big companies employ automation software to monitor their listings, and will revert anything that gets changed. Others check their GMB dashboard (or employ a SEO Business to do so), which includes a notification of changes, which they can click one button to revert. I ran into a chain of stores that listed several hundred of their locations as "Closing in June" in their name. I tried correcting the name on several, only to have the "Closing in June" return mere minutes (and in some cases, seconds) after the edit was published. It wasn't until I started making noise publicly to GMB via Twitter did they step in and clean up the mess, making the corrections without showing them on the Dashboard or to the automation software in a way they could be reverted.

This has been an ongoing issue with GMB enforcing their own policies for several years, and despite repeated requests to fix, doesn't seem to gain traction.

[zachcozad1]

I get those often and I hate it. It's like their trying not to make me feel bad. 

[Johngotti]

Yup

[davidcox]

@MWJones I have followed Mike Blumenthal for years on and off and on.  The issues seem to go on and on. My question is how do you decide when to fight an issue? Is it by size or effect to you or what.  What are your criteria that would help us be better contributors? You certainly see how much data is needed and corrected.

[MWJones]

@davidcox It is purely a personal choice. I remove a lot of "service area businesses" (businesses at a home address, or a virtual office - in other words businesses like plumbers and electricians that only do work at a customer location, and do not have a staffed public storefront) only to see them come back because of the GMB claim. I've done hundreds (if not thousands) of them over the years, and it doesn't warrant a fight for those individually. Same goes for businesses with their location in the name field, despite the direction from @Flash and others back in the Map Maker days that said that only hotels were allowed to have such identifiers (because the hotel chains use those identifiers throughout the reservations process, so it is for finding the right location when you aren't sure of the address) I remove them only to see them come back on many businesses.

In the case of the "Closing in June", I decided to push it with GMB because it was way outside the normal parameters, and there were over 200 locations in the United States that had that descriptor. My thought was, what if when those locations close the team managing their listings don't clean it up, then we're stuck with these "Closing in June" listings still cropping up for years (just like how Blockbuster Video and Blockbuster Express was still showing up for years, even though the company went bankrupt and closed all locations) even though they show "Permanently Closed".

Keep in mind, I have no stake in the business listings, I'm not in the SEO business or the like. My original intent for editing Google Maps via Map Maker was to add the roads in two of the fastest growing cities in the United States (because there is at least two - and sometimes as many as eight - new subdivisions opening every month, with lots of new roads) which share a common border less than a mile from where I live. Over time, it became a spam fighting mission as well. Both have been hindered by the closure of Map Maker, and I hope given time the situation for both will improve, allowing me to focus on what I liked to do.

[MapWrangler]

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@MWJones wrote:

Some big companies employ automation software to monitor their listings, and will revert anything that gets changed. 

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Hi M Jones,

I didn't know about the automatation software -- (that may be a duh! moment on my part 😉  ... but it certainly explains the speed at which these are sometimes changed.

Thanks!