{"id":1837,"date":"2019-02-13T10:16:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T15:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dry-number.flywheelsites.com\/?p=1837"},"modified":"2019-11-19T13:58:31","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T18:58:31","slug":"google-my-business-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/google-my-business-events\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Fix Google My Business Events Listings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In just over 20 years, Google has gone from a small start up to the monolith it is today. Google is ubiquitous and sometimes even seems omniscient. But in reality, Google isn\u2019t perfect. Despite their ability to deliver perfectly packaged information, they\u2019ve managed to design something so unclear\u2014and so often incorrect\u2014it baffles even the most experienced of Google users.<\/p>\n<h2>We\u2019re talking about the Google My Business Knowledge Panel.<\/h2>\n<p>While the Knowledge Panel was launched to give business owners the opportunity to easily share crucial information with prospective customers\u2014location, hours, contact information, and more\u2014Google hasn\u2019t managed to get the Events listings in it under control.<\/p>\n<p>In a nutshell, <b>Google occasionally lists completely incorrect events on the SERP.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/solutions\/local-seo\/\">We handle local SEO management for many of our clients<\/a> and run into this problem often. We\u2019ve seen events listed on incorrect dates and times; we\u2019ve seen the same event listed in several different languages; we\u2019ve even seen events listed that <i>don\u2019t even exist<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Not only is this problem a massive one, <b>there\u2019s no way for you to directly edit this information yourself.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In an effort to find a solution, we\u2019ve spoken to Google reps, searched Twitter threads and pages of forums, and have tested quite a few strategies ourselves. Despite our best efforts, we still see these problems <i>constantly<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>For example, one of our clients is a fitness center with multiple locations; they hold regular group fitness classes with several different instructors. Each location has their class schedule on that location\u2019s page. When you search for one of the locations, here\u2019s what you\u2019ll see in the Knowledge Panel on the right side of the SERP.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1841\" src=\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gym-events-listing.png\" alt=\"Gym events listing in Google My Business\" width=\"500\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gym-events-listing.png 894w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gym-events-listing-300x261.png 300w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gym-events-listing-768x668.png 768w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gym-events-listing-273x238.png 273w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gym-events-listing-30x26.png 30w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Notice that there are three different Zumba classes\u2014all scheduled in July, despite the fact that it\u2019s February at time of publishing. And each is listed in a different language. It doesn\u2019t make much sense at all to have all of the events in different languages. (Oh and those four other events? One, scheduled in July, is in Italian; another, in August is in Portuguese; the last two are scheduled for January 2020 and are in Italian and Indonesian, respectively.)<\/p>\n<h2>What\u2019s going on here?<\/h2>\n<p>Google is pulling the information for these events from third-party site zumba.com, Zumba\u2019s official website. While it makes sense that Zumba would advertise a class on their site, it doesn\u2019t seem logical to pull that information\u2014in different languages and for months away\u2014for the gym\u2019s Knowledge Panel.<\/p>\n<p><b>Google is recognizing the a third-party website as the authority on another company\u2019s events.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>See, Google will scan the website in question in addition to third-party sites to decide what information to pull in for the Knowledge Panel. However, as this example shows, they aren\u2019t doing it perfectly\u2014often, they aren\u2019t even close.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re not the only one having these issues. See this tweet from Tim Capper, a consultant on local SEO:<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Google <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GoogleMyBiz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@GoogleMyBiz<\/a> is now scraping the bottom of the barrel with their <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/EventSpam?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#EventSpam<\/a><br \/>\n1. This is not an event and never was &#8211; its short film<br \/>\n2. It only mentions 10 Downing Street<br \/>\n3. No Structured Data Markup<br \/>\n4. Last modified 2016<br \/>\n5. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/StopCrapOnTheMap?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#StopCrapOnTheMap<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jsSHH37LOZ\">pic.twitter.com\/jsSHH37LOZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tim Capper (@GuideTwit) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GuideTwit\/status\/1073999727895687168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">December 15, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<p>If not even the headquarters of the United Kingdom\u2019s government can stop this, who can?<\/p>\n<p>An obvious solution to this problem is to stop third-party information from showing up on your business listing. Wondering how to get this done?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>Unfortunately, it\u2019s not an easy answer. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>In our experience, there\u2019s not much you can do to stop it.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re not the only ones looking for solutions. Other local SEO experts have suggested the similar tactics that we already do for our clients: adding the correct information to your site, submitting your URL to the Google Search Console, and <i>then<\/i> adding information to third-party sites that you can control, like Yelp.<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn\u2019t guarantee that Google won\u2019t give preference to higher-ranking sites anyway.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, there seem to be very few guarantees on this topic\u2014even from Google themselves.<\/p>\n<h2>When we spoke with a Google rep, they provided two solutions:<\/h2>\n<h3>1. Reach out to third-party sites to change the information.<\/h3>\n<p>This plan assumes that the thousands of third-party sites that aggregate and disseminate your business\u2019s information are willing (and able) to do this. It also assumes that Google will update the Knowledge Panel in a timely fashion. Neither of these are guaranteed.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Reach out to Google.<\/h3>\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever had the pleasure of working with a Google representative, you\u2019ll know that while they\u2019re often quite friendly, they\u2019re limited in what they can say and do. It can take several business days to hear back from them, and it\u2019s easy for communication to drop. Stay on it in the hopes that they can change it on their end\u2014or escalate it to someone who can.<\/p>\n<p><b>While those strategies <\/b><b><i>may<\/i><\/b><b> work for you, they\u2019re not what we like to rely on. <\/b><\/p>\n<p>Sure, we go through that dance every time we see an issue, but we also choose to be proactive about our local listing information, in the hopes that we can prevent these problems <i>before<\/i> they start.<\/p>\n<h2>Here\u2019s how Digital Strike handles events through Google My Business:<\/h2>\n<h3>1. List individual events on their own page.<\/h3>\n<p>We noticed that the Zumba website in the example above had each event listed on its own page with its own unique URL. On the other hand, other sites sometimes put all their events on one page, utilize PDF calendars, or don\u2019t list events on their site at all, instead relying on social media to get the word out.<\/p>\n<p>By giving each event its own page, you\u2019re hopefully signaling to Google that this event is important. Plus you\u2019ll have room to add in all the important specifics, like the date, time, location, cost, and any other information your customers will need.<\/p>\n<p>Be incredibly thorough with this step and <i>hopefully<\/i> Google will choose your correct information over a third party\u2019s incorrect details.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Then add event schema to the page.<\/h3>\n<p>Schema is a data markup system that helps search engines, like Google, understand what\u2019s on your page. Take <a href=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/Event\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the schema for Events<\/a> and add it to your page through tag manager to help Google crawl the information and pull out what\u2019s most important for your customers.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Actively maintain your entire Google My Business listing.<\/h3>\n<p>As part of our local SEO work for clients, we\u2019re constantly making sure that each bit of information on their GMB is correct. That means looking at commonly searched information such as NAP (name, address, phone number) and hours, as well as pictures and questions from users.<\/p>\n<p>While this may not have an effect on the events listings themselves, we still focus on putting your best foot forward for Google and all of your customers to see.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to note that these strategies are proactive ones, meaning we aren\u2019t sure how effective they are if the Google My Business Knowledge Panel contains incorrect information.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em><b>If your GMB Events listings are incorrect, 1) know that we empathize, and 2) <\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/contact\/\"><b>get in touch with us<\/b><\/a><b>. We\u2019ll give you a free consultation to help determine what\u2019s going wrong with your Events listings\u2014and we\u2019ll show you how we can manage the rest of your local listing information to make sure customers are finding what you actually want them to see.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We talked to Google to find out how to fix incorrect Google My Business Events listings. Here&#8217;s what we found out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-optimization"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}