Understanding Google Places & Local Search – Developing Knowledge about Local Search

When you do a search for google.com in NYC or Chicago you predictably get results for…Google. But the search for Google.com in some cities returns very strange results. The result that I found particularly strange was the result when searching for Google.com Olean NY:

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One of the interesting tidbits that I discovered….. (more…)

Many, many professional practices and clinics have multiple practitioners. Google Maps is all about the Place. In the past, Google has made it quite clear that there should be one listing for each business.

However, Google when assembling data about these professionals, often gathers both place and practitioner detail to create Places pages. Thus often there will be a clinic page as well as a number of individual professional places pages.

I have often wondered whether one should keep the individual listings or consolidate them into one to best conform to Google’s guidelines and practices. Historically I have, when appropriate, consolidated the listings into a single listing. While that strategy consolidates all citations and reviews it often creates ongoing work. It becomes necessary to check the and purge the index as the individual listings continue to flow in.

I decided however, to get Google’s “official” opinion on the matter so I asked Ari Bezman, Google’s product manager for the Local Business Center Google Places as to how Google thought this situation should be handled.

MB: What is Google’s recommended practice in regards to handling the multiple listings that most professionals and clinics end up with?

Should we endeavor to have one listing for the practice Place and merge all of the doctors (or whatever) into the one listing or should a we endeavor to keep the individual doctor listings?

Ari: Each doctor (or other independent professional) should have their own listing, with one more listing for the clinic.

MB: A related question is that often the Doctor listings come into Google with a format of Dr Name: Speciality . Is that the preferred business name or is just the Dr. Name preferred?

Ari: The name should just be Dr. Name. The specialty should be in the category and/or the description.

MB: What about in practices (say legal practices) that have a ton of low level professionals who come and go but the practice really only wants to be known by their place and trade name. Is there anything wrong with them claiming the many spurious records into the master record?

Ari: It really depends what the individually “contactable” parts of a business are. We’d like to have one place page (and so one entry in Google Places) for each one of those. So, that definitely means one for the law firm, and then one for each department or professional that is willing to receive cold calls/emails/etc. from new customers. There’s no reason to list internal/back-office departments or people. So I’d say it depends on the law firm and how they represent themselves in the real world and in other media.

Google Maps has never been great at providing meaningful feedback in the Google Places management area (aka LBC) to businesses that encountered errors in entering their record or when being given a penalty. For a while this trend was improving as the messages were getting more specific and meaningful and at one point last fall, Google’s Joel Headly responded to my post complaining about the ever onerous “Flagged Waiting for Content Check” message, by saying publicly that “I take responsibility for this. I’m working through this issue now, and I expect to improve the experience for users by the end of the year”.

But we seem to have taken a big step back with the “We currently do not support the location” message now being applied in several situations, none of which make sense to the small business person making the edit.

The message has meant that Google hasn’t fully processed your recently added site and that they had not yet fully integrated the listing in the index. Thus users would generate the error when viewing their stats or viewing the listing in Maps too soon after creation of their listing. If you stopped backed a few days (up to 12) later, you would find all is ok.

Apparently though, the message now also means: Your listing is not in compliance with the Guidelines and is not showing on Maps.

This answer was recently provided in the forums by Google Employee Helen to a poster whose listing had disappeared from Maps (and in this post as well):

Check out this article [1] for details about why you’re seeing the message “We currently do not support this location” when you click on See your listing on Maps.

If you find that your listing receives this error message for an extended period of time, check to make sure that it adheres to our Google Places quality guidelines [2]. Some of our most commonly-violated guidelines include:

-Multiple Listings For Same Location
-Inaccurate Representation of Business Name
-Inaccurate Representation of Address
-Inaccurate Representation of Phone/URL

Cheers,
Helen

I support Google’s efforts to clean up the index, I support their right to not show listings that are not in compliance with their guidelines. I do not support their cryptic non-transparent communication and terrible error messages.

If a listing isn’t showing because of a violation, say so. If it is clear how the user can fix it, tell them explicitly. If they are being suspended from the index for a given time, indicate how long.

Is it really so hard to provide specific, meaningful messages to various error and/or punishment states? Can’t the error say exactly what went wrong, what needs to be done to fix it and which help page has more details. This is deja vue all over again.

Google has insinuated themselves into our business lives. That’s the reality. They offer benefit to those who manage to do well in Maps. That does not give them the right to not communicate to a business that has gone afoul of whatever the new rules are….

The Google Jazz upgrade is now rolling out and is available in most locations (although not all as I have it at home but not work). SInce its early testing, the interface has evolved through a number of changes as it relates to local, some of which pushed organic results further down the page than others. In the end though the final changes will not result in any significant difference when local results are shown.

Here is a screen capture at 1024 x 768 with before and after looks at the impact that the new interface PLUS the new local refinements options have on the page (click the image to see full size):

As you can see, by reducing the amount of space at the top of the page Google preserved the size of the Local 7-Pack and kept the amount of organic results the same as before.

When using the interface during the test, I came to like its feel and prefer it to the “yesterdays” display. What is your opinion of the interface? Will it have any new impact on Local and organic results?

I have also added screen shots of the old and new Local Universal result displays from my 1920×1200 monitor. Interestingly at this resolution the new and old designs both show 6 organic results.

GetList.org Local University in Minneapolis is coming up on May 13th at the Westin Edina Galleria and there will be an AM and one PM session. As always the Twin Cities event will be focused on providing the small business person with an overview of marketing their business on the web.

The regular cost is $129 but the discount of $40 is still available (use discount code MB). To register visit our Twin Cities page. I am hoping to see some of you there, get a chance to meet and talk over a beer.

The sessions are designed to educate small business folks on some of the ins and outs of internet marketing in a DIY style leaving ample opportunity for those of you who are professionals to add value and context for your clients. If you are interested in bringing a block of customers, email me so that I can provide you with an additional savings on the ticket price.