Google, Can You Be More Disjointed/Fragmented?

Really, Google. Must you make it SO HARD for all of us small businesses?

I have been managing Google Business (business.google.com) for a number of clients for 15 – 20 years. From that sub-site of the Google empire, a developer or business owner can manage their listing and be found in Google maps (maps.google.com). Quite sufficient for a good long time. Now you’re offering us to add products, yet there is a whole new spinoff, Google Merchant Center which does same.

Along the way: Google + and Google Places have been retired. Google Adwords is still in play. Analytics is still going strong and was the first of the Google sub-sites (analytics.google.com) to require us to put a site verification code in our header or DNS.

The “new” shopping tab in the search results makes it so we must establish a Google Merchant Center and add our products–not enough that we do that in our own websites–or use a feed manager. The Merchant Center (merchants.google.com) also asks us to add a site verification code.

While trying to help a particular client, I couldn’t yet get into their merchant center, even though I am authorized through Google Business. Job unfinished.

While poking around I also found Google Search Console (search.google.com), something I hadn’t yet known about even though I’ve been doing site optimization for natural/organic search placement my entire internet career. I was able to login with my own Google user and add the particular client I’m currently helping, but NO, the rest of the 20 or so clients in Google Business do not automatically get pulled in. Thanks, Google. This sub-site also offered an opportunity to add a site verification code, so I did, and it verified, BUT it was NOT the same verification code that the Merchant Center specified. And it had to be added to DNS–not the more easily accessed header code that a client might feel more comfortable doing.

DOES ANYONE AT GOOGLE TALK TO EACH OTHER? What a ROYAL pain in the a__!!! All kinds of extra work. They don’t care about customer service because they don’t have to. I think they like making us jump through hoops so they can show us just how powerful they are. Do you really think small business clients have hundreds of extra dollars to pay us to help them through this process?