Having been engaged in research on local, prepping my talk for SMXLocal & traveling, I haven’t paid that much attention to the bowels of Google Maps of late, so this could have been present for quite a while. But Google has added a new tab to the More Info display for a business record in Maps:
This content is taken from maps that I created for this client in MyMaps. Historically, the content in these tabbed areas of Maps have correlated well with ranking. Whether this is the case or not remains to be tested but obviously this indicates that Google thinks that User Generated Content from MyMaps is important enough to elevate to this level of visibility and reinforces my standing recommendation to create these sorts of geo-referenced signals for Google to key in on.
Maybe this is also part of the cleanup described on their LatLong blog:
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-blue-and-better-than-ever.html
Comment by martijn (77 comments) — July 29, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
Thanks for that. I was noticing a lot of user created listings that were not in regular Maps. Now it looks like it is being given some credit. Maps and Google in general really seem to be listening . . . and responding lately.
Comment by panzermike (112 comments) — July 29, 2008 @ 4:37 pm
maybe this is also part of the cleanup they wrote about on the Lat Long blog
(my previous post went into a black hole , it contained a link to latlong blog, maybe thats why )
Comment by martijn (77 comments) — July 29, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
Seems to take a while for the user generated maps to appear inside that tab. A few of my clients I had set up some MyMaps for aren’t getting that tab to appear in their listing.
But when i do a search for their business then click on the “See user-created content” link, those MyMaps i built show up in the search.
Comment by Stever (79 comments) — July 29, 2008 @ 6:05 pm
@Martijn
Right you are, it was buried in the spam bin, sorry :), a little bit too aggressive. Seems to be part of the larger upgrade.
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (688 comments) — July 29, 2008 @ 8:05 pm
@Stever
Could it be that Google had some trouble associating the MyMaps item with the business listing? In the ones that have shown up for me (not all have), I had the business name in the body copy and linked to the website from within the MyMaps pin.
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (688 comments) — July 29, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
Mike -
Great to see you back in action here. 4 posts from you all at once!
I just noticed the new tab today, myself, and saw one record with 34 UGC listings. Unfortunately, I was on the phone (sometimes looking at maps is a form of doodling, you know) and I clicked off it, and can’t remember where it was.
This is a really interesting new development. Are you seeing any negative UGC in anything you’ve run across with this yet? ‘Dodo works here’ maps associated with businesses? I can’t help but wonder how this will be used, gamed and spammed. And…what effect it may have on MapsRank.
Miriam
Comment by MiriamEllis (287 comments) — July 30, 2008 @ 4:45 am
[...] let’s make it more easy! Bigger Map viewing area for example. Away with the clutter, new tabs (user content)! They now use just one search box! make it easier for you to find stuff, not just [...]
Pingback by Less is…more Maps : Local Search Optimization - Martijn Beijk — July 30, 2008 @ 8:45 am
Miriam
Negative UGC being spammy? Yes, in the spam I reported in the Maps Group I am seeing lots and lots of it….
It is one of those “can’t hurt so why not” technologies. Even if it has no impact on your rankings, it would be easy to automate MyMaps creation and build a pile of them….and someone might just find your listing that way…
Another interesting question for Google is will they have to develop UGC spam prevention for MyMaps to be something other than a huge cesspool?
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (688 comments) — July 30, 2008 @ 9:22 am
“Another interesting question for Google is will they have to develop UGC spam prevention for MyMaps to be something other than a huge cesspool?”
Sure they will. They’ll get to it as soon as they develop spam prevention for Maps, itself. Haha. Poking fun at Google.
Miriam
Comment by MiriamEllis (287 comments) — July 31, 2008 @ 2:29 am
@Miriam
Oh, you cynic you!
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (688 comments) — July 31, 2008 @ 7:14 am
[...] do know that Google has started displaying user generated content in the business listing in Maps. User Generated Content is essentially KML information that has [...]
Pingback by Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search » Google Maps: KML for authority and ranking? | Developing Knowledge about Local Search — August 7, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
Weird, nothing shows for me when I click on User Content tabs. I’m in the UK, but using Google.com, and have tried US and UK sites. The tab appears, and there are numbers next to it, but when I click on it, nothing appears in the space where the Google Maps placemark entry shows in your screenshot
Are there any known issues with this (I’m using Firefox 2)?
Cheers, Jon
Comment by Jon (3 comments) — September 4, 2008 @ 10:52 am
Jon
The disappearing info under the tab seems to be happening in Text view of late (but not so much in Map view). Try switching to Map view and see if you can see the content.
It is a bug that shows up of late with web pages as well….it comes and goes. My theory is that it is a product of the recent upgrades and that they have yet to work through it completely.
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (688 comments) — September 4, 2008 @ 10:58 am
Thanks Mike, glad to know it’s not just me (or the UK). As you say, there seems to be occasional weirdness lately around the “ten box” and related pages
Cheers, Jon
Comment by Jon (3 comments) — September 4, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
I have listed one website of my client in google local serach map, i have added as much as information I can, but i didn’t find any option to add User content, plz help me how can i add that.
Thanks! Jitesh
Comment by Jitesh (1 comments) — July 2, 2009 @ 1:24 am