Comments on: Google Places Adds Nearby Places You Might (not) Like

By: Related Places Moving to Main Search Results? | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:01:19 +0000

[...] Related Pages were added to business’s Place Page in early February 2010 and were originally referred to as Places [...]

By: Google Related – Making Buried Information From Places More Visible | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:08:33 +0000

[...] much as it did when the feature was rolled out in early 2010. At the time it was referred to as Places Nearby You Might Like and were the first obvious indication to SMBs that they did not control their Places page but that [...]

By: Google Places: Are Ratings the New Reviews? | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:42:21 +0000

[...] added the ability to add this simpler, quick Hotpot like star rating to businesses that show in the Related Places area of the Place page (When did they change the name from Nearby Places You Might Like?). The [...]

By: Google Hotpot – Yelp Meets Netflix in a Local Recommendation Engine | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:44:47 +0000

[...] changes that in and of themselves did not make a lot of sense. Hotspot puts their early 2010 addition of Nearby Places of competitors into the Place Page in perspective as well as more recent moves of tightening down [...]

By: Alessio

Alessio — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:32:22 +0000

It will be interesting to see how google determines which competitors listings show up in this new ‘nearby places you might like’.

By: Top 10 for the Weekend – June 18, 2010

Top 10 for the Weekend – June 18, 2010 — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:21:41 +0000

[...] has begun exposing your competition on your very own Places page! How sneaky. Our friends over at Blumenthals.com attribute this to Google wanting to make their Places page a starting point for your search as [...]

By: Matthew O'Brien

Matthew O'Brien — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:43:09 +0000

Google seems to be emulating the success of other portals like Yelp and iPhone apps. There is never a lack of things to do for keeping your local business listing as a top search.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:45:15 +0000

I think most SMBs would contend that a link that they put on their site is by their choice and not the choice of an algo. The SMB is going to create the network and participate in it and thus the network of links from their website is natural and real. The algo, that recommends a Chiropractor 10 miles away for the drive-in diner or the 10 immediate competitors is a Google engineers idea of what constitutes that local network.

In fact your comment brings up an excellent idea…engage the SMB in identifying those nearby and related businesses that their customers might be interested in. The results would be significantly more meaningful that those generated by this algo and would engage them in the process.

By: Kevin@TB

Kevin@TB — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:37:37 +0000

If you have a good product, you will be willing to share the space. The easier you make it for your customers to see what else is out there makes them quicker to use you – again if you have a good product. The same is why would a website put up links away from their site. Because if you have a good resource, people will still come back. Only those who have a mediocre product should worry about this development.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:03:57 +0000

@Ash
It is still a very imperfect algo that’s for sure. The usefulness ranges from useful to totally bogus…

@Taylor
If you look at the interview I did with Carter Maslan, you will see that Google perceives this page as a search results page to which you can add “some” content, not a page over which you can execute much control.