What if my Google Places Listing is Pending Review

Before reading on, please understand that without direct, first-hand knowledge of your Google Places entry we are only able to discuss the most common issues found behind the 'Pending Review' flag.

As you may know, eGumball is a high-level contributor in the Google Places Help Forum, where we have offered our expertise and knowledge for some time now. Judging from both our professional experience, as well as the thousands of forum discussions, we can confidently surmise that one of the following will probably be to blame for your listing being flagged 'Pending Review'.

Matching Business Title in Description

If you are using your business name in your description make sure that it is an exact duplicate of your actual business name. For instance, a very simple abbreviation of your company name (eg. Acme Cleaning Company to Acme Cleaning Co.) can trigger the pending review flag.

Excessive Use of CAPITAL LETTERS (CAPS)

According to Google's Quality Guidelines, the excessive use of CAPS is not permitted. Although it may actually be legitimate in most cases, Google does not allow the repetitive use of CAPS in any part of your entry, including Business Title, Category or Description. This policy was implemented some time ago, following persistent all-CAPS use by a large number of optimizers. Consequently, simple business title acronyms like "ABC" now need to be submitted as "Abc" and so on.

Nanny Bot Terms

The Nanny Bot is a filter deployed by Google so as to prevent the indexing of offensive terms, associated with sex or gambling. For instance, the word "facial", used by plastic surgeons with a service term such as "facial reconstructive surgeon" can easily cause the 'pending review' flag and should be removed from the relevant entry. The word "sex" used by psychologists specializing as "sex therapists" will almost certainly trigger a 'pending review' flag. On the whole, this is quite a complicated topic for which eGumball is able to provide the expert help necessary to help you understand your limitations.

Locksmiths

If you are a Locksmith you might as well leave your Google Places listing alone. For a year (or more) now, Google has not allowed a Locksmith out of the 'pending review' corral. The simple reason for this is that a great many Locksmiths have, in the past, been known to spam multiple variations of their business name in the thousands. In the end, this widespread abuse caused Google to apply the never ending 'pending review' flag for locksmiths. In fact, these days the only way to get a Locksmith included in Google Places is through coherent citation development, because Google is still including/updating Locksmith records from trusted data providers. This is another area of expertise where we've helped a great many businesses across the United States.