Today in the announcement section of the Google Help forums Google has published a simplified view of where their business listing information comes from. The details as to how this actually functions were covered by Bill Slawsky in his review of the patent, Generating structured information, filed in early 2006.
In the recent announcement Google notes the following mechanisms and sources for the listing data noted in the schematic:
As many of you know, a local listing is often created by including data from multiple sources. We do our best to give attribution to the data appearing on a local listing. Here’s a rundown of our main sources of data and how it appears in a listing:
LBC: Local Business Center. Information submitted and verified as individual listings appears with the label Provided by business owner. Also, some feeds are submitted through the LBC.
YP: Yellow Pages. This describes information we get from public directories created and licensed from 3rd parties. In some areas, we provide attribution at the bottom of a list of results (e.g., business listings distributed by YellowPages.ca™).
EC: Enhanced Content, which can include reviews, photos, business hours, payment methods, and other details. This is provided to us via feeds from other websites. If this information is coming from a published web page, a link will be provided.
UGC + WEB: User Generated Content & other websites. Both these sources are either submitted to Google directly or crawled, just like other websearch results. If the content is hosted on a website, we’ll provide a link. Otherwise, you’ll see a Provided by Google users label that shows it was submitted using our community features.
This newly posted information essentially mirrors the details of the 2006 patent . I will detail, in the next day or two, how this “clsutering” technology leads to Google’s issues with merging business records in the index.
[...] – Link Here. Included is a good visual describing where Google pulls the information. Here are the [...]
Pingback by Rochester Local Leads - Market Watch 7/1/09 | Rochester Local Leads — July 1, 2009 @ 8:52 am
How do I change the wrong link on our business listing? When you type in “Sarasota car museums” in Google, the correct address, map and information come up with the wrong link. The link that is posted takes you to a car museum in upper state N.Y.
The museum called to tell us that they are receiving calls for groups, tours, banquet bookkings, etc.
I went to the business listing to see if I could change it, but there isn’t any information about changing this link. How do I do it?
Luanne Brannen
Marketing Director
Sarasota Classic Car Museum
Sarasota, FL
Comment by Luanne Brannen (1 comments) — July 2, 2009 @ 9:35 am
You need to claim the listing. First you need to log in to a Google account then go to this link and select the option to claim your business. Once in the Local Buisness Center you will be able to control the record.
You can quickly first edit the URL by logging into Google and using the edit link visible above. This will allow a quick change but you want to “claim” your listing to prevent further changes to it.
Comment by Mike (1029 comments) — July 2, 2009 @ 9:39 am
[...] 6)”The Cluster” works in mysterious ways [...]
Pingback by Your Google Local Search Maps Listing Can Be a Cluster | Practical Local Search- Seattle and Bellevue WA — August 6, 2009 @ 11:09 am
[...] Google Details Information Sources for the Business Listing “Cluster”, Mike Blumenthal [...]
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