Last week, I reported that a number of folks were only seeing the post card verification option and no phone verification when entering new businesses in the Google Places Dashboard.
In the forums Google noted:
Hi all,
I understand there have been some recent questions about verification methods. If a business is new to Google, certain verification methods may be unavailable depending on the information provided for the business.
Whenever Google wants to maximize their trust level in a listing they will request post card verification as it offers them the highest confidence that the listing is real.
The phone verification option is only available now when Google has strong confidence about the listing data. It appears that Google has “upped the ante” in this regard particularly in relation to new business listings.
—- Above content from Blumenthals.
This means that people who create new local listings may have to wait 2-4 weeks for a postcard to arrive from Google with the verification code. I will be keeping track of which businesses fall into the category of “not having a lot of Google confidence” and thus requiring this. I suspect that – since Google uses a lot of data from other directory sites like Dex, Superpages and Angie’s List – that the more listed you are, the more likely Google will allow a phone verification.
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