So I got this super cool letter from Google in the mail the other day. Apparently I am a "favorite" place on Google — favorite in my locale anyway. They sent me this cool window decal for me to put up with a nifty code there at the bottom so people with "smart" phones can scan the code and look up my Google listing. Which seems weird, since most people would use Google to find me, but the people who are passing by my window have probably already found me ... But, hey, Google has WAY more money than I do! So maybe I'm not the expert on how this works.

So I read the letter that accompanied my nifty window decal and I was feeling downright superior there for about six seconds. So I logged in to my Google account only to discover that Google says that my "Art of Nailz" listing has been "rejected" because it doesn't meet "quality guidelines."

Of course, you click on "quality guidelines" and get directed to a big long page of suggestions for creating your Google listing. It never tells me what, exactly, I fail to meet. After reading through it, I figured that they are mostly miffed that I have two listings with different business names for the same address. One for "Art of Nailz" and one for "Nails by Maggie." Someone really needs to explain to Google how salons work — what with the booth rental thing and all — because there are a lot of businesses like ours that would have multiple listings for the same address that are perfectly legit.

At any rate, the irony is that the "favorite place" designation comes from the rejected listing! If you Google "Art of Nailz" you still get me and the listing that I submitted that was theoretically rejected.

I have no idea how to un-reject it, since Google makes it so freakin’ easy to communicate with them and all. Maybe I'll just delete the "Nails by Maggie" listing ... or maybe I'll just leave it the way it is, since it seems to be working for me just fine.