Why does google now have an auto-detect location?

Has Google solved the "We currently do not support this location" problem, and if so, how do businesses use that solution?

• A small businesses that I help had their Places page disappear. Simultaneously, their Google Adwords campaign clicks and costs spiked, but their business from online has declined.  Going into Places and checking returns the "We currently do not support this location" which is a known issue that seems to have happened to MANY other small businesses  If I search for them in Places or Maps, I get an inaccurate response, but their ad is displayed. If I search more in Google Maps, Google , I find another business with a  similar name - BUT AGAIN, the Advertisement for the small business that  I help appears.  Searching thoroughly shows links to a Yellow Pages ad, but no mention of my friends business. (Again, the Google Adworks ad shows up.) A more cynical person might ask if this "known issue" was designed to bump Google ad revenue. Google had an official forum thread to record examples, but locked the thread after 130 entries. (https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Places/thread?hl=en&tid=112ad969c07dfd8d ) Many other Google support threads point back to this one... That seems unhelpful. Other than "edit your businesses ad and hope it fixes itself" is there any known solution?

• Answer:

  The short answer is: We know it's a pain point, we're working on it, and we need better messaging that gives you actionable steps to fix it. Do keep in mind that we remove a ton of spam out there, and they should be seeing that message; but I know, there are always a handful of false-positives, and we want to make the experience better for those cases. If you're seeing that message, get in touch with Google Places support using this form: http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs Select: I have verified > Yes > My listing no longer appears on Google Maps. > Fill out the form, and await a response from a member of the support team. P.S. I've seen that message appear because of some confusion in our backend: You claimed a listing at an old address, moved to a new address, and updated that claimed listing. We marked the listing closed because the old address is no longer relevant. To avoid that issue: Report the old address as closed, using "Report a problem" on the listing itself, and create a brand new listing at the new address. That should, hopefully, avoid any data confusion down the road. Again, that business life cycle, and how we display that properly on Google Maps, is something we're actively working on too.