In the last few weeks we have seen a few Google Places listings revert back to being listed as unclaimed, when they have already been claimed, edited and verified by clients.

Any change like this always prompts alot of discussion and there are a couple of different points of view on why this has happened and what needs to be done.  Two main ones are:

1. Listings that have been ‘optimised’ with keywords in the business name or categories (amongst other things) have been removed and the previous version is displaying. This isn’t happening to all listings, but we suspect that it is a roll out so more could be affected over time.

2. The switch to Google Places has caused a roll back of the index – which may or may not be updated.

Regardless of what the reason is, there are two actions you should take:

1. Check your listing and if it has reverted back then you will need to claim it again and go through the process of getting a phonecall with a PIN to validate it.

2 Review your name and categories selected and be careful not to have too many keywords loaded into them.  It is best to keep them completely natural and provide the best and most useful information to users.  This is what Google wants.

Whilst this may be a bit of a pain it is a good prompt to check the information you have provided to Google and ensure it is accurate and up to date.