Marcus: —hold on, you’re cutting out. Can you— [static] —there you go.
Morgan: Sorry, yeah, I’m on— shit, hold on. [rustling sounds] Okay, I switched to my phone’s hotspot because the WeWork WiFi just completely died. Can you hear me now?
Marcus: Yeah, but you sound like you’re in a tunnel.
Morgan: I’m basically hiding in a phone booth situation because there’s some kind of… I don’t even know, like a networking event happening and it’s just chaos out here. [loud laughter in background] Sorry, that’s not me.
Marcus: [laughs] No worries. I’ve got my neighbor’s leaf blower going, so we’re both living our best lives right now.
Morgan: [laughs] Perfect. Okay, so— wait, before I forget, did you ever follow up on that thing you mentioned last time? The, uh… what was it, the schema markup issue?
Marcus: Oh. No, actually, I— [pause] —shit, I completely forgot about that. Was I supposed to send you something?
Morgan: No, no, I don’t think so. I just remembered you mentioned it and— you know what, doesn’t matter. So I wanted to ask you about— [pause] —god, what was I… okay, yeah, the GMB thing. The listings that disappeared?
Marcus: Oh Jesus. Yeah. That was… [exhales] …I still have stress dreams about that.
Morgan: When even was that?
Marcus: April 2019. No wait, was it April? [pause] Yeah, April because— no, actually, it might have been late March. No, April. Definitely April because it was right after Easter and I remember because my daughter had just gotten back from spring break and brought home this stomach bug that knocked out our entire house for like three days.
Morgan: Oh god, that’s the worst.
Marcus: Yeah, so I’m just getting back to work, feeling like death, and I open Slack at like… I don’t even know what time. Morning. Early. And there’s this message from Rachel.
Morgan: Who’s Rachel?
Marcus: Account manager. She’d been with us for maybe two years at that point? Really good, super organized. And she sends this message that just says “call me when you get this.”
Morgan: Uh oh.
Marcus: Right? So I call her and she’s like— and I can hear it in her voice, she’s trying to stay calm— she’s like, “Okay, don’t panic, but the HVAC client is saying their listings aren’t showing up.”
Morgan: Which client was this?
Marcus: Smith & Sons. They did heating and AC repair across Texas and Oklahoma. Big operation, like 47 locations. Been with us for… god, maybe a year and a half? Two years? They were one of our— [pause] —they were important. Put it that way.
Morgan: And when she said the listings aren’t showing up, did you think—
Marcus: I thought it was a ranking thing. Like, they dropped from position one to position five and the owner was freaking out. That happens all the time. So I’m like, “Okay, let me look.” And I pull up Google and search for their main location in Dallas. “Smith & Sons HVAC Dallas.” And… [long pause] …nothing.
Morgan: Like, not ranking or—
Marcus: Not there. The knowledge panel’s gone. The listing doesn’t exist. And I’m staring at my screen thinking maybe I spelled something wrong. So I search again. Same thing. Nothing.
Morgan: What did you—
Marcus: I checked Houston. Gone. Austin, gone. San Antonio, gone. I went through every single city, Morgan. All 47. Every single listing had just… vanished.
Morgan: [low whistle] Okay, so—
Marcus: And I can feel myself starting to sweat, right? Because it’s Monday morning— wait, no. Tuesday. It was a Tuesday because— yeah, Tuesday, because I remember traffic was worse than usual. Doesn’t matter. Point is, it’s morning, prime time for service calls, and they’re invisible.
Morgan: Did you know what caused it right away?
Marcus: No. No fucking clue. Sorry, is it okay if I—
Morgan: Yeah, swear all you want.
Marcus: Okay, good, because this still makes me want to— [laughs] —anyway. So I log into the GMB dashboard and everything looks fine on the backend. All the listings are there, all the information is correct, hours are updated, photos, reviews, everything. But on Google? It’s like they never existed.
Morgan: That’s so—
Marcus: Weird, right? So I’m going through my mental checklist. Did they get suspended? No flags, no emails. Did someone leave a bunch of fake reviews? Reviews look normal. Search Console penalties? Nothing. And meanwhile, Rachel’s texting me like every five minutes going “any update?”
Morgan: How long did this go—
Marcus: [interrupts] Sorry, go ahead.
Morgan: No, you go.
Marcus: [laughs] Okay. Um, what was the question?
Morgan: How long were you trying to figure it out?
Marcus: All day. All fucking day, Morgan. I’m on forums, I’m tweeting at Google— which, by the way, never responded— I called my Google rep who was completely useless. Just kept saying “it’s being escalated” which is code for “I have no idea what’s happening.”
Morgan: Did the client know at this point?
Marcus: Oh yeah. Rachel got them on the phone around… [pause] …I don’t know, 10 AM maybe? And it’s Jim— that’s the owner— and he’s trying to be cool about it but I can hear the panic. He goes, “Marcus, I need you to be straight with me. How bad is this?”
Morgan: What did you tell him?
Marcus: I said— [long pause] —I mean, what could I say? I told him I didn’t know yet but I was working on it. Which was true, but also… [trails off]
Morgan: Not what he wanted to hear.
Marcus: No. And then later that day— this was like 3 PM— he calls me back and his voice is different. Quieter. And he says, “Our call volume is down 60% today.”
Morgan: Oh shit.
Marcus: Yeah. Sixty percent. That’s… I mean, I did the math later. That’s thousands of dollars. Per day. And it’s my fault. Or it feels like my fault. I don’t know.
Morgan: But you didn’t—
Marcus: [interrupts] I know, but— sorry, you were saying?
Morgan: No, just that you didn’t cause the listings to disappear, right? Like, you didn’t do anything?
Marcus: Well… [long exhale] …that’s where it gets complicated. So remember I said this was April?
Morgan: Yeah.
Marcus: About six weeks before this— late February, early March— we had consolidated all their listings into one master GMB account. Because before that it was a mess. Different locations had been claimed by different managers over the years, some by franchise owners, some by corporate. It was a nightmare to manage. So we got everyone to transfer ownership to this one account that we’d control.
Morgan: That seems pretty standard though.
Marcus: It is! It’s totally standard. Except— [pause] —okay, so there was this one location in Tulsa. Small office, not a major revenue driver. And it had been claimed years ago by this woman who used to work for them. I think she was a regional manager or something? And she’d left the company in like 2016 or something.
Morgan: Okay…
Marcus: So when we requested the ownership transfer, she must have denied it. Or ignored it. Or— I don’t know, something. But I never got a notification about it. It just… sat there in limbo.
Morgan: Wait, but that’s just one location out of 47.
Marcus: I know! That’s what I kept saying! But apparently— and I only figured this out on Wednesday after talking to like five different people in the GMB forums—
Morgan: Wait, this was still going on Wednesday?
Marcus: Oh, it went on for three weeks.
Morgan: Jesus.
Marcus: Yeah. So anyway, Wednesday I finally connect with this guy who’d seen something similar, and he tells me that when Google sees a failed ownership transfer, especially if someone’s actively denying it, their system flags the entire account as potentially fraudulent.
Morgan: For one listing?
Marcus: For one listing. And their automated system just nuked everything. All 47 locations. No warning, no email, no human review. Just… gone.
Morgan: [long pause] That’s insane.
Marcus: I know. And when I finally figured this out and explained it to Jim, there’s this silence on the phone. And then he just says— [pause] —he says, “So we tried to get organized and Google punished us for it?”
Morgan: [phone notification sound] Sorry, that’s my— ignore that. What did you say to him?
Marcus: What could I say? “Yes”? I felt like an idiot. Here I am, the supposed expert, and I just accidentally destroyed their entire local presence because I didn’t follow up on one transfer request closely enough.
Morgan: But that’s not really—
Marcus: I mean, isn’t it though? Like, should I have double-checked every single listing? Probably. Should I have been more paranoid? Yeah. But also, should Google’s system be so fucking aggressive that one failed transfer nukes 46 legitimate businesses?
Morgan: Right, but—
Marcus: Sorry, I’m getting worked up about this again.
Morgan: No, no, it’s— I mean, it’s frustrating. How did you fix it?
Marcus: [laughs bitterly] Oh, that was fun. So first I had to track down the woman in Tulsa. Rachel found her on LinkedIn— super nice lady, totally forgot she’d even claimed the listing. She approved the transfer on Wednesday afternoon.
Morgan: Okay, so that’s good—
Marcus: But then the listings don’t just magically reappear. I had to submit reinstatement requests for all 47 locations. Individually. Each one.
Morgan: How long did that take?
Marcus: To submit them? Like three hours. To get them approved? Two weeks. Some came back after four days, some took the full two weeks. Jim would call me every day— sometimes twice a day— being like, “Houston’s back! Still waiting on Austin.” It was torture.
Morgan: Did you calculate how much money they lost?
Marcus: [pause] I didn’t want to. Jim did though. He figured somewhere between 40 and 50 grand. Maybe more because even after the listings came back, rankings were weird for a while. Some pages came back strong, some took weeks to get back to where they were.
Morgan: Did they fire you?
Marcus: [laughs] You know, I really thought they would. I had this whole email drafted in my head. But Jim— and I still don’t understand this— he called me after everything was resolved and said, “These things happen. You handled it.”
Morgan: Wow.
Marcus: I know. I didn’t deserve that. I refunded them for two months anyway. Came out to like… [pause] …sixty-two hundred dollars, I think? Something like that. Out of my pocket, not the company’s.
Morgan: Did your business partner know you did that?
Marcus: [pause] No. Actually, I never told him.
Morgan: Oh.
Marcus: Yeah. [pause] I probably should have but… I don’t know. It felt like my mistake.
Morgan: Do you think it was? Your mistake?
Marcus: [long pause] I don’t know. Some days I think yes, I should have been more careful. Other days I think the whole system is broken and I’m just another person getting crushed by it. [pause] What do you think?
Morgan: I don’t— honestly, I don’t know either. It seems like you did everything… [trails off] …I mean, how are you supposed to predict that?
Marcus: [exhales] Yeah. That’s what I tell myself. Doesn’t always help though.
Morgan: Do you still work with multi-location clients?
Marcus: Oh yeah. All the time. But now I’m— [laughs] —my team thinks I’m insane. Any time we do a consolidation, I have this whole protocol. We document every step, I personally verify every transfer went through, we monitor the listings daily for a month.
Morgan: That seems… I mean, that seems smart.
Marcus: It’s paranoid. But I’m not doing that again. Three days— sorry, three weeks— of watching a client hemorrhage money while I scramble to fix something I didn’t even break? No thank you.
Morgan: [sound of door opening in background] Shit, sorry, someone just— [muffled voices] —yeah, I’ll move in a second. [back to Marcus] Sorry, I’m apparently in someone’s way.
Marcus: [laughs] Where are you right now?
Morgan: Honestly? I’m like, crouched in the corner by the bathrooms because it’s the only quiet spot. This is— [laughs] —this is not professional.
Marcus: Hey, I’m in my kitchen because my office is getting painted and I can smell the fumes from here. We’re both doing great.
Morgan: [laughs] Okay, good. Um… [pause] …what was I going to ask you?
Marcus: I have no idea.
Morgan: [pause] Oh! Right. Did you ever talk to anyone at Google? Like, actually explain what happened?
Marcus: I tried. I got connected with someone— I don’t even remember her name— and she basically just said their system flagged it for suspicious activity and there’s no manual override. She didn’t even say sorry. Just, “The system detected unusual patterns.”
Morgan: That’s so—
Marcus: Infuriating? Yeah.
Morgan: I was going to say “corporate” but infuriating works.
Marcus: [laughs] Yeah. And that’s the thing that still bothers me, even now. Like, six years later. There was no accountability. No one at Google said, “Hey, maybe our system is too aggressive.” They just… [trails off]
Morgan: Moved on.
Marcus: Exactly. And meanwhile, I’m still having dreams where I wake up and check my phone and there’s a message that says all our clients’ listings are gone. [pause] That sounds dramatic.
Morgan: No, I— I get it. When something like that happens, it sticks with you.
Marcus: [pause] Yeah. Do you ever feel like we’re all just… I don’t know, like we’re constantly one algorithm change away from disaster?
Morgan: [long pause] All the time. Yeah. Every single day.
Marcus: It’s exhausting.
Morgan: It really is.
Morgan: [pause] Can I ask you something else?
Marcus: Sure.
Morgan: Do you ever think about getting out? Like, doing something else?
Marcus: [laughs] You mean like a normal job where I don’t have stress dreams about robots.txt files?
Morgan: [laughs] Yeah, exactly.
Marcus: Sometimes. But then I think… [long pause] …what else would I do? I’ve been doing this for— god, 16 years? 17? It’s all I know. Plus, on good days, when everything works right, it’s still kind of… [trails off]
Morgan: Fun?
Marcus: Yeah. Fun. Which sounds insane after everything I just told you.
Morgan: No, I get it. It’s like a puzzle where the rules keep changing and sometimes your puzzle explodes for no reason and ruins a vacation to Iceland.
Marcus: [laughs] Wait, what?
Morgan: Oh, that was— someone else told me a story about a site migration that— never mind. Different disaster.
Marcus: [laughs] There are so many disasters.
Morgan: So many.
Marcus: [pause] Hey, what time is it there?
Morgan: Uh… [pause] …11:47. Why?
Marcus: I have a call in like eight minutes and I should probably— [sound of something crashing] —shit, hold on. [muffled] Not now, I’m on a call! [back to Morgan] Sorry, my cat just knocked over a plant.
Morgan: [laughs] Is the plant okay?
Marcus: The plant is fine. My floor is covered in dirt but the plant is fine.
Morgan: [laughs] Well, I should probably let you go deal with that and prep for your call.
Marcus: Yeah, I should— [pause] —hey, thanks for letting me vent about all this. I don’t really talk about it much.
Morgan: No, this was— I mean, thank you for being so honest about it. Most people don’t want to talk about the times they screwed up.
Marcus: [laughs] Did I screw up though? I still don’t know.
Morgan: [pause] I think you did everything you could with the information you had.
Marcus: That’s… [pause] …that’s generous.
Morgan: Well, I’m a generous person.
Marcus: [laughs] Clearly. Alright, I’m gonna go deal with this plant situation.
Morgan: Good luck. And hey, if you ever want to talk about other disasters, I’m— my inbox is open.
Marcus: Oh, I’ve got plenty. We could do a whole series on things that went horribly wrong.
Morgan: Don’t tempt me.
Marcus: [laughs] Alright. Talk soon.
Morgan: Yeah. Bye Marcus.
Marcus: Bye.
[end]
