Interview mit Google VP zu “Nearby places” auf den Google place pages Gestern berichteten wir hier im Blog zu dem neuen Feature “Nearby places you might like“, in dessen Rahmen nun auf den Google place pages auch eine Linkliste …

As always, Mike – thanks for the interview and posing the important questions.

Seems unlikely that Google will give the SMB more control over their Places page. It seems that the direction that they are taking is less control.

As you can see with the Buzz announcement, the day of Places Pages and mobile will soon be upon us. In mobile, Google is striving for never having to have the user leave their site and this move is part of that.

As Earlpearl pointed not many users will see the Places Page from the desktop as it is currently configured but, I do think it is being positioned for the future as a Mobile catchall…get their from search, get their from gmail, get their from Buzz…Mobile has much less space to sell thus there is a need to increase page views to get anywhere near equal inventory.

Google has been actively mismanaging their communications & positioning with SMBs. Most never forgive the sin of duplicity and whether intentional or not, Google has meandered down that path.

If you haven’t seen Miriam’s article yet where she notes that Google [is] Acting Like Merchant Circle With Nearby Places Move you should take a look at it.

There I noted that at the end of the day, despite talk about “serving the searcher” as their primary objective, Google is, like Merchant Circle, serving their stock holders.

The rest is happy talk and I for one would welcome it, if they took a more straight forward approach.

Carter – a business’s Place Page is not a search result. Never was, never will be. It’s an expansion of a search result. When someone sees “XYZ Motors” listed as one of the search results and then clicks “More Info”, they’re not looking for more search results. They’re looking for info. about THAT business. The first search results page already shows “nearby results” the user might like. They don’t need to see it again on the business’s place page.

At minimum, you should turn this feature off for business’s that have claimed their listing.

Thanks for generating the interview and getting Google to communicate with the rest of the world about its newest G maps/places efforts.

Several points grabbed my attention.

1. The discussion about types of businesses that show up, when businesses don’t show up, etc. brings attention to this algo that identifies a specific business and type of industry and then creates relationships. In its own right that is an interesting development.

2. Google acknowledges that the information is buried and while there is traffic to this section of the places page it is minimal. I suppose we are in for a long term experiment as Google works with this algo and information.

I suspect its impact on businesses will be minimal. It reminds me of the early stages of the google coupon. It was developed, it had glitches, it had minimal visibility, Google seemed to ignore it, businesses with it didn’t have much experience with its being used, etc. Meanwhile it clearly has potent power for the businesses and Google as it gets highlighted.

3. Finally the discussion on the Places Page and what it represents intrigued me. You referenced it as a spot that Google signaled as a landing page. Carter Maslin disputed that but claimed it as a place where businesses can claim accuracy.

I think that is “Google Speak” for “we aren’t going to be forthright with you.

Seriously. Websites should generally be accurate. They are developed by the businesses.

Google maps data is often not accurate. We all know that. It is run by algo’s. The algos grab data from data sources that might not be accurate. The algo’s merge data from two different sources at times. (there seems to have been a rash of complaints about that recently in the Maps forums). Plusboxes in google.com have shown false information. Finally, G maps and places pages become a venue for business spam. Google’s algo’s then can promote the spam.

If CM really believes that the places pages are a venue for accurate information than Google needs to do its part to ensure that accuracy.

I suggest more customer service bodies. (the suggestion might seem repetitive) (It is)

“We want to help people find things, we realize it needs work, we don’t really pay attention to what SMBs want.”

and the rest is just gas.