The cleanup is expected to be the final phase of splitting Plus from local. Some have hinted that this is part of a larger move away from G+.

In recent releases Google has states:

“In the past few months, you may have seen some changes in the look of Google+ pages that have been associated with Google My Business (GMB) accounts. These changes, including how we treat business pages without owners, are part of Google’s ongoing effort to simplify people’s experience with our tools. We are constantly working to provide only valuable and rich content to our users.

On July 28, Google will begin shutting down those GMB-associated Google+ pages that have not been associated with user accounts and are also not verified. You may find that some of your Business View tours also sit on such pages, but note that after this removal of unverified Google+ pages, the Business View tours will still remain available on Google Maps and Google Search.”

Pages that remain unclaimed continue to cause problems for users. It’s simply clutter that needs to be removed. On top of that, Google is offering perks right now for everyone to claim their pages and regularly connect to Google My Business.

The Google Maps team has commented on the cleanup and has made recommendations as well:

“Encourage your business customers to verify their listings if they wish to retain their Google My Business page .

If a business owner decides later that they would like to have a Google My Business page, please advise them to create a new page and verify their listing. The Business View virtual tour can be then transferred to the new verified listing. Please log a case to our support teams to request that images for your business customer be forwarded to the new GMB page.

Please point your business customer to their images in Google Maps.”

Verify those pages and don’t lose them to the cleanup accidently. There are other concerns about the cleanup as well. Some people are questioning whether this will make SEOs job more difficult in the future. Diagnosing where to improve SEO may become more challenging because information can be gathered about unverified pages, such as a look at poor NAP. This is something that would need to be resolved, but may becoming increasing difficult to spot after the cleaning.

What are your thoughts on Google cleaning house? What other changes would you like to see to Google+?

Access tokens are basically the keys to the kingdom as far as exchanging information between the client, your server, and Facebook. Tokens regulate the information apps have access to and which operations can be performed. There are four primary types of tokens: User, App, Page, and Client. User tokens come in two forms, short-lived and long-lived. Short-lived tokens usually have a lifetime of about an hour or two, while long-lived tokens usually have a lifetime of about 60 days.

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish with your app you may need an extended expiration token. Follow this quick guide to extend the expiration of your Facebook access tokens. If you already have your App ID, App Secret, and the access token you want to extend skip to step 9.

1) Go to Facebook Developers and open your App’s dashboard. You will need your App ID and Secret later.

2) Go to Facebook Explorer using your personal Facebook account in a new tab.

3) Click Graph API Explorer then select the app that you want to create an access token for from the drop-down. (The application “Example” is used below)

4) Click on Get Access Token.

5) Check any User Data Permissions you may need, then click Extended Permissions.

6) Check manage_pages and read_stream box and click Get Access Token.

7) Click OK when the prompt appears. If the app is managing a page as well a second prompt will appear to verify permission. (Note: App review submissions are not necessary for apps managing pages you have created)

8) You should now see an Access Token generated for you.

9) Copy and paste the URL below in a new tab. Replace the URL’s app id and secret with your App ID and App Secret from Step 1. Next replace the URL’s access token with the Access Token created in the previous step, and click enter to open the new URL.

https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?grant_type=fb_exchange_token&client_id=App ID&client_secret=App Secret&fb_exchange_token=Access Token

10) Congratulations, you have just created an extended access token! Copy and paste the new token the URL generated in the previous step into the Graph API Explorer Access Token field and click Debug. The expiration time should read 60 days.

Socials Center is a social media resource meant to inform the world about platform updates, tips, and to discuss what’s trending. Our goal is to help keep everyone informed of important updates and changes made to everyone’s favorite social media sites. Not only is it important to know what has changed, but it is just as important to understand how those changes affect you. Given there are so many different social networks SC will focus on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Twitch.

Network settings and features are sometimes complicated or not well understood. There are usually a ton of different options available to help make your page look different from all the others. Whether it’s how the settings are presented or function everything always changes, and changes often which adds another degree of difficulty to the equation. Socials Center hopes to help make social networking easier for everyone by sharing some tips and tricks for each platform.

Social media should be enjoyable! SC will highlight some of the Internets latest trends as well and we hope you join in and become part of the discussion. If you have a question or suggestions about anything we discuss, or if you think of anything you would like us to discuss please contact us.

All of us at Socials Center hopes you enjoy the site, find it useful, and continue coming back and telling others about us in the future!