Claiming (and optimizing) your Google Places listing

If you haven't noticed, Google search results are putting more weight on location of the searcher as well as local results tied to Google Maps. Google search users now see map-based search results (for pertinent keyword phrases) below AdWords and above organic results.

This begs the question: have you claimed your business' Google Places listing?
The easiest way to find out is to do a search on Google for yourself (or your client's business) on Google using location terms along with the business category or even name.

As you can see above, we did a search for "warren vt property management" and Google displayed an Ad for the first result (from Google AdWords), then 3 listings from "Places" and thirdly, the organic results.

The easiest way to find your Google Places listing is first searching for your business name with some location-specific information like "your name yourcity yourstate" - in this case, we searched for "clearwater sports waitsfield vt"

Once you see a listing that matches your business, click on the "Place Page" link to see the place page details. You will immediately notice the top light blue bar contains a link called "Edit this place" and another that says "Business owner?" if the Places page is NOT claimed. If someone (or you) have already claimed it, you will see "owner-verified listing"

If the navigation bar says "Business owner?", this Google Places listing has not yet been claimed/modified. You may notice reviews, images, and maps that relate to your business. This is just data brought in by Google they think is related to this map listing.

Click on "Business Owner?" to start the process of getting control over your Google Places listing.

Here's where it gets a little tricky. If you are already logged into Google with an existing Google Account, you will be taken to the "Add, Edit, or Suspend Listing" page, where you can Edit the listing.

BUT, if you aren't logged in to Google, you will see a "Claim your business listing on Google!" page

If you are not logged in and/or don't have a Google Account, login or Create an account now.
Use your business email address or email that you already have for other Google services. This email address will be used by Google to give you future access to Google Places and many other services (Google Analytics, Blogger, Alerts, etc)

Once logged in, you will see the "Add, Edit, or Suspend Listing" page

If this listing looks like your business (name, address, phone number), then select the "Edit my business information" radio button and press Continue.

Google lets you take the time to edit most of the information pertaining to the listing now. Correct or enter the Country, Company, Address, City, State, Zip, Telephone, email, websites, a short description and choose at least one category.

Note: The categories is a required field to move forward. Google has a preset list of categories - try to find yours.

In this example, we simply started typing 'sports' and the category "Outdoor Sports Store" showed up. It matches, so we are going to select it. We can always add more categories later.

Finding a Google Places category that matches your business

If you want to, feel free to edit the Service areas, Hours or operations, Payment options, Photos, Videos and Additional Details - but you can also complete this over time (after you have 'verified' your listing).













Press the SUBMIT button on the bottom of the Edit page



Google will take you to a Validation page where they will allow you to prove that this is your listing by either calling the phone number they have on record or sending a postcard to the mailing address they have on record. The simplest way to VERIFY your listing is to select "By phone" and enter your contact name in the field provided.

Notes: If the phone number is wrong or you cannot answer that phone, then you should select the "By postcard (2-3 weeks)" option. If neither of these are accurate, then you should not 'claim' this listing, and instead create a new Google Places listing.

When you press the FINISH button, Google will call (or mail you) and give you a  PIN code. Wait for the ring (it only takes a few seconds) and write down the code the computer reads you.

Your browser will take you to the Google Places Dashboard and show you the status

Once you get the PIN code (by Phone or US Mail), enter it in the "Enter your PIN:" field and press Go.

You now have control over your Google Places listing and will not only see that it is "Active", but see the impressions and actions it is receiving on Google results.


To edit your places account anytime, you can simply navigate to www.google.com/places and click the "Places for Business" link. If you are logged into Google, you will be able to enhance your listing and hopefully show up more when people search for you, your business category and/or your location!

You can edit your listing at anytime, add photos, modify the description to better explain what you do, embed videos to enhance your listing as well as add categories and 'additional details'....but that is another story.

Bomgar helps VickeryHill support clients remotely

There are loads of desktop Remote Control solutions to choose from out there on the Interwebs: LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, Join.me, WebEx, Symantec's PCAnywhere, Microsoft Terminal Services Client, Numera, VNC, etc.

When it was time to choose a solid solution that VickeryHill could use for 24x7 support of internal workstations, servers, web servers, client desktops as well as presentation training and support - we researched a dozen. We finally chose Bomgar as our preferred and bought their B100 box to get started.

A couple of exciting features of the Bomgar solution that clinched it for us were the actual bringing of a piece of hardware into our office and the ongoing support contract. Having the box internally means we not only reduce bandwidth needs when remoting our telecommuters and internal workstations/servers, but it also means we are not beholden to 15 hops away on the Internet for our solution to work. If we're on the web, Bomgar's on the web!

We created a link on our public website navigation for support. When it's time to help a client, we simply direct them to our home page and ask them to click 'Get Support'.

Everyone at VickeryHill.com has the Bomgar Client Representative Console loaded on their workstation and when needed, they either generate a key or ask the user to click on their name under Client Representatives

Their browser downloads a small application from Bomgar and the next thing you know we can see their screen or present ours. Bomgar also lets us see their file structure and efficiently transfer files as well as see their system status. We can even chat between users in the session. Once the remote session is completed and we close Bomgar, all traces of the software is removed from the remote desktops and we are on our way.

Bomgar lets us securely see and be seen, allows recording of screen sessions for future review and has an Apple iPad Client Representative App coming out this summer.

What more could you ask for?

Authorize.net explains the Independence Weekend fiasco

Detailed below is Authorize.net’s explanation of outage from 3am eastern July 3,2009 to nearly 3pm eastern. Hundreds of thousands of websites and millions of transactions were affected, including some of VickeryHill’s customers. Our use of AlertSite to monitor transactions on a customer’s site, www.verilux.com, made us one of the first to learn of the problem and, dare we say, instrumental in bringing customer service from Authorize.net to Twitter (as their website, telephones and email were down).

Unanticipated Downtime Summary: Authorize.net

The security and reliability of the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway are of the utmost importance to everyone at Authorize.Net and our parent company, CyberSource Corporation. Each year we invest significant financial resources and energy to assure that we can accommodate our growth-both in terms of the number of merchants we serve and the number of transactions we process. Our mission is simply to provide the industry's most secure and reliable payment solutions.

As part of our efforts to assure that we are meeting our goals, we continuously look at our infrastructure and processes to confirm that they meet the needs of our merchant base. Unfortunately, late in the evening of July 2, 2009, we encountered a service disruption that adversely impacted our merchant base. The purpose of this communication is to explain what happened and perhaps more importantly, the steps we are taking to ensure that it will not happen again.

Fisher Plaza Fire
Authorize.Net's primary servers are housed in the Seattle-based Fisher Plaza, a state-of-the-art "class A" data center with full redundancy and diversity in all systems, including the building structure, power, cooling and connectivity. However, even with state-of-the-art technologies, things can go wrong, and on July 2, 2009, at approximately 11:10 PM Pacific time, Fisher Plaza suffered a fire that knocked out its primary power supply.

Upon losing power, Fisher Plaza immediately moved to backup generators, but was forced to shut the generators down by the Seattle Fire Department due to their proximity to the fire location. With this loss of power and backup power, at approximately 11:40 PM, Authorize.Net (along with many other Web sites) was forced offline.

Backup Data Center
As already mentioned, Authorize.Net continuously reviews its infrastructure to assure that it is adequate to meet the demands of the business. As part of the 2009 planning process, it was determined that we were approaching the maximum capabilities of our current backup data center, and the decision was made to open a new, state-of-the-art backup data center in San Jose, CA. This new backup facility would not only act as a backup, but as a true "hot" site (in other words, real-time synchronization), so that the Authorize.Net platform could be switched from one data center to the other "on the fly." At the time the fire occurred at Fisher Plaza we were just completing the final stages of transitioning to the new San Jose backup data center.

Perfect Storm
It's fair to characterize the events beginning with the fire at Fisher Plaza as a perfect storm. Not only did the fire occur late at night, but the long July 4th holiday weekend had begun and the majority of our engineers, operations team and Customer Support representatives were on holiday. While many of these people were called back to work shortly after the fire started, it took longer than we would have liked to gather the full team. The fire knocked out our primary data center, which also provided our primary communication infrastructure, including e-mail and phone lines. We quickly organized our teams to fail over to the new San Jose data center. But while near completion, the backup data center was still undergoing final testing and configuration, and when we attempted to fail over, a number of unanticipated errors occurred. These errors, combined with our inability to access the Seattle data center (the fire department had deemed the building unsafe and no one was allowed in), caused the outage to last much longer than we would have expected.

Most transaction services resumed at approximately 11:00 AM on July 3rd and over the following days, other services were also restored. These other services included issues with Automated Recurring Billing, Batch Uploads, the Verified Merchant Seal and others.

Important: At no time whatsoever was any data that is handled or stored by Authorize.Net compromised.

Communication
Unfortunately, the fire also crippled our ability to communicate to our merchants and partners. While we would normally post messages on the Merchant Interface, Reseller Interface, public Web site, Customer Support line, etc., none of these tools were available due to the fire.

At approximately 7:30 AM on July 3rd, we began posting messages to our Twitter account and we continued to provide updates via this channel. As service was restored, messages were also posted on the Merchant Interface, Reseller Interface and phone lines. In addition, our Customer Support department opened on Sunday, July 5th to assist merchants and partners.

Current Situation
Authorize.Net resumed processing transactions Friday morning and continues to operate normally from our backup data center. Fisher Plaza is being powered by external backup generators and is now operational as our backup center to San Jose. While it may take several weeks to restore normal power to Fisher Plaza, the external generators allow this facility to be fully operational. However, until primary power is resumed we will continue to operate out of the San Jose data center. We do not anticipate any further interruptions in service.

Lessons
Even as our engineering and operations teams continue to ensure normal operations, the postmortem process is already under way. We are examining all aspects of this outage and implementing steps to mitigate future risks. Over the next weeks, we will be completing the work to ensure that we have two fully functional, synchronized hot sites. Failing over from one to the other will occur in a matter of seconds. Steps are also being taken to ensure that we have the ability to implement emergency communication by distributing our voice, e-mail and Web capabilities across multiple sites.

Over the next days and weeks the postmortem will continue. Processes will be refined and further protections put into place.

Conclusion
We would like to reiterate that the stability, security and reliability of the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway are of the utmost importance to everyone at Authorize.Net and CyberSource. We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience the downtime may have caused and want to assure you that we are taking the necessary steps to avoid any similar situations in the future.

Thank you for your understanding and patience and thank you for being an Authorize.Net merchant. We will work hard to live up to the confidence you have placed in us.