Comments on: Google Clarifies Guidelines on Business Titles for Maps Listing

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:28:31 +0000

google business name guide is against natural justice since the ‘1,3 and 7′ pack change. Lucky businesses who have the search category in their name come up as a 1 pack. This is unfair when they are 10 miles away and there are many closer businesses.

I did some work on a Semantic Web database in 2001 as I believe an algorithm cannot have semantic knowledge. google believe they can write an algorithm which picks out the perfect match to a clients search.

Maybe they are trying to save space on the screen or have belatedly woken up to WAP phones and PDA phones. As part of my database I had a Composite Capabilities table to describe the content which can be served. Also a Personal Profile Preference table to say what the client would like to be served with, maybe its total capability or say how much space you want a stock ticker service to take up on your screen.

If google were a little cleverer we could choose to have a 1 pack on our WAP phone, a 3 pack on our PDA phone and a 7 pack on our web tablet and the good old 10 pack on our desktop or 17″ luggable laptop.

I think the small businesses would be happier if the ‘1,3 and 7′ pack was implemented this way.

Cheers. Andrew.

By: roger

roger — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:46:37 +0000

After reporting H&R Block for the past month or so they have stopped dominating the local listings for “city name tax preparation”. The still list the extra keywords “income tax preparation service” so maybe Google changed its algorithim. Many times they have the first listing but now they don’t have all the listings. Thanks for the great info on this board.

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:57:05 +0000

I have been battling a large national chain (H&R Block – Official Name). Recently they added the keywords “Income Tax Preparation Service” to their title. If you search for “new york tax preparation they are the first 3 and half pages of listings since they did this. I have reported many locations locally in Atlanta as Spam but nothing has been done. I am a Jackson Hewitt Tax Service franchisee and our legal name is “Jackson Hewitt Tax Service”. We have claimed all of our locations and published them by the guidelines but are getting killed by the Spam listings. Nationally many of the other Jackson Hewitt franchisees are reporting H&R Block’s in their local areas but they have 12,000 stores.

By: Tate

Tate — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:43:33 +0000

Wow.

This is a new wrinkle to the naming game. As a guy that names stuff for a living – specifically companies, usually – we’ll need to start factoring in the legal name for Google searches.

Perhaps having people utilize their Legal Name for Google and a DBA for regular purposes would help…

By: Google Maps: Category Mapspam » Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:56:16 +0000

[...] Well because while you and I are stressing over the details like legitimate business naming practices to comply with the guidelines, the spammers long ago went after the long tail of category search [...]

By: Local SEO Simplified. A Basic Guide for New Users

Local SEO Simplified. A Basic Guide for New Users — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:49:28 +0000

[...] 2. Business Name – It’s not about who you are but what you do. The opportunity for any local small business to attract new customers lies in attracting people who are looking for what the business does rather than who they are. Before you could get away with having the type of your business present alongside your actual business name and location, but now Google has clarified the guidelines on business titles on map listings. [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:02:03 +0000

@Richard

Good question. That isn’t totally clear. I am punting here…Perhaps they do not yet have enough other signals from across the web on a wide enough range of businesses to properly determine relevance to a query?

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:55:13 +0000

Why doesn’t Google simply eliminate keywords in the company name as a ranking factor? That would eliminate any incentive to do so.

By: panzermike

panzermike — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:58:48 +0000

Well if thats the case, why is it that despite multiple spam reports do they allow these businesses with fake names to control the 1, 3, and 10 packs?

I changed my name and sent my DBA to G.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:19:21 +0000

@Miriam

Great points. The issue is complicated to define and will be complicated to enforce.

Certainly the users needs should be the ultimate consideration but if I am hearing Google correctly then the business owner needs to file a dba (ficticious filein in CA?) for his partnership/sole proprietor ship to be totally acceptable under these guidelines.

As Jim points out above an algorythmic approach to verifying business name is likely to fail a fairly high percentage of time.

That all being said: Hear, Hear to Google for responding! even if the answer is not the one you thought.