May 30, 2011
Yam Regev has pointed out several new navigation capabilities on a business’s Place page that allows users to more easily move through a list of Places returned from a Google Maps search result. The feature is only visible when a Place Page has been accessed via the list view resulting from a Map search and is currently not visible if a Places page is accessed from the main search results page or via Places search. The feature is visible in both UK and the US and possibly more widely.
It is not clear if it is a test or permanent or will be rolled out beyond the Map results view (click to view larger):
May 26, 2011
In early March, Google rolled out Check In offers as a feature for Latitude in Austin. In April the feature was additionally made available to national retailers like Radio Shack and Quiznos.
The feature was not made generally accessible to most retailers. At the time I inquired of Google when it would be available more widely and if it was free or paid. Google provided their all too frequent “We’ll let you know if and when we have more details to share” response.
I managed to uncover some additional Mobile Check-Ins details in this recent Google Places Help Page:
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It was apparent to me in early January that the introduction of Google Hotpot was leading to vast increase in Google’s review/rating corpus. I was seeing reviews and ratings in industries and geographic areas that had not seen Google originated reviews and seeing them frequently.
To get a better handle on this trend I examined the review corpus in Google Places in the restaurant and car repair industries for the two month period immediately following the introduction of Hotpot (Nov 16 – Jan 16) for the top 7 listings in 7 large markets, 7 mid-sized markets and 7 very small markets. In total I looked at reviews/ratings for 147 of the top ranked businesses. The methodology, while somewhat flawed, showed even larger gains in Google’s market share of total reviews/ratings than I had anticipated.I am hoping to revisit the data and examine the changes since February.
Rather than letting this data sit unused on my hard drive I am publishing a small subset of the data for all to see.
Some conclusions that I drew at the time:
-Google had effectively moved from a minor to a major player in the review space in a very short period moving from 3-5% of the total review corpus to 20%.
-Google Places for Hotpot is a mobile success story demonstrating that having the right product at the right time AND promoting them can dramatically change markets.
-Historically Google reviews were stronger in both secondary and tertiary markets prior to 11/16 but showed dramatic improvements across the board with the rollout even in large cities where Yelp has always had a very dominant position. They also showed significant growth in hi tech markets like Ithaca NY.
-In Portland, where Google had significant “feet on the ground” they were able to increase their share to almost 40% to the total corpus. It is clear from their success in Portland why they have rolled out their marketing efforts to Austin, Madison, Charlotte and Las Vegas. Mid-sized cities all where Google’s marketing dollars can have the most impact. While their expenditures in Portland may have seemed exorbitant, it demonstrated how they can “own” a market going forward.
-The success of Google in the space further removed opportunity for general review sites to succeed. There are still opportunities in the review space but only in local niches and for companies that approached reviews in a different way.
May 25, 2011
Last week I struggled to understand how to properly use the newly introduced RSS feed import feature in the Google Places Hotpot feature that allows you to quickly review places of interest to you. I struggled with the interface and the instructions wondering exactly which reviewer would succeed with the task but along the way I discovered a creative black hat use. Use the feature to automate your spammy review farm activities.
Google Places has implemented some algorythmic filters to remove spammy reviews from Places account. The filters are still a work in progress and often catch good reviews along with the bad. While the algo seems to be able to filter the obviously bad reviews it often seems to not catch the review content from “positive review only services” that are obviously spam.
Usually these services have a number of clients and an equal number of “reviewers” that post reviews on the client’s listing page. Any given review and reviewer look legit. But in aggregate the quantity of reviews, the distance and location of the reviewed businesses, the rapid change from negative to many all positive reviews and the reoccurrence of certain businesses amongst the reviewers point to spam. This particular pattern of review spam abuse is only obvious when you look at a number of the reviewer’s history and a number of listings that they have in common. An example of this pattern is often visible in car dealers. See these dealers: here, here, here and here and these reviewers: Anastacia, Debi, Rachel and Candida and it becomes clear to a human viewer, if not the algo, that it is spam.
The new RSS feed capability that Google added to Places allows a user to easily (well the activity is easy once your figure out the totally wigged out interface) import their favorite businesses from MyMaps and FourSquare into Hotpot for a quick and easy queue of Place listings to review. The feature, as obtuse as it is, might attract a few active, geeky FourSquare users but it also seems to be the perfect tool to make review farms more “efficient”. As the price of fabricated reviews continues to drop in the open market place, it is important to your long term success that you are the low cost provider.
Here is a step by step guide to the vagaries of this new feature for all of you black hat review spammers out there that want to achieve greater scale to your operations: (more…)
May 24, 2011
A poster just left this comment on another post but I felt that it so captured the frustration of the new initiate to the bizarro world of Google Places that I wanted to give it more visibility:
Mike,
Can I just say, with a monumental sigh of gratitude, Thththank youuu.
and Phew!.
Having tried to upload my lovely business on google places, I was tearing my hair out in frustration as the seizmic idiocy of google in producing such a complex, complicated, complelety impossible system which would drive anyone including Mr ultimately-zen-calm round the i-twist. I received my postcard, logged on to the totally unintuitive “local/add” google places website and received a message from the planet zog which said, bluntly “There is no data for your request”on my errr “dashboard” (apple speak). Having no idea what this meant, and watching in dismay as my competitors have happily logged their businesses on places, I tried to contact google for help. Woooow ho ho, back up tonto and don’t go there. Clearly google are so customer-lovingandhugging that they have no facility in england or in holland to receive a telephone call, or an email.
Earth to google… Come in Google. Who are these people? Really, I’d like to know, who are they?
Luckily, I have a snuffle around the web (wasting valuable earning time) and found your wonderful google translation which told me that “there is no data…zogg…dubble….woogla…request” means that they haven’t uploaded the details I put in yet. Ohhh. (though quite why this takes 6 weeks - six!! and relies on pigeon postcards to send me cyber pin numbers, baffles me , if possible, even further).
Anyway, on my e-wanderings I met many other perfectly sensible people who have considerably less hair (and nerves) than they once did as a result of crossing paths with Google Places -How this bunch of prepubescent techno-nerds ended up with a reputation for leading edge business practice is, well, its beyond me. But thanks to you. At least I know now to wait a few days, pity the poor so and sos who have bigger problems, Google represents hells on waiting room for common sense folk of the planet
May 23, 2011
Since last October when Google noted in their FAQ that Rich Snippet testimonials might flow into a Place Page, many webmasters took the time to mark up their client’s sites in hReview.
As Andrew Shotland has recently noted and my observations have confirmed, these marked up reviews have slowly been making their way onto Places Pages from 3rd party review sites.
However none had been seen from SMB sites until very recently. Since the first of May, 3 examples of SMB website’s testimonial pages having finally shown up on their Places Page. While there are likely to be more in the wild, three examples (from myself, Andy Kuiper & Tyler Robertson) seem to indicate that going forward more are likely to occur:
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May 20, 2011
I developed this presentation for a conference I presented at earlier this year. I have not included my notes or any context to the deck but I think it stands alone as a quick look back thru the wayback wacky machine at Google’s local developments that I found significant.
For those of you that think that local just hit the scene you will discover the long and rich history of Google Local. It is also interesting to note the accelerated pace of significant development over the past 18 months. Some of that is an artifact of my attention span but some of that is very real and shows that while Google is slow to fix they are very quick in the development cycle.
Google Maps Enhances Interface
Yam Regev pointed out that Google Maps has upgraded the UI twith a stacked image and a fluid visual roll over that highlights the listing the pin highlights on the Map:
Offers Tab Removed WorldWide
Update from Google: To clarify, we have not removed the Offers tab for any regions — this tab has only been available in Google Places for businesses located in the U.S. since it was introduced a few years ago.
The Offers tab has been removed from Places for every country outside of the US. One can only speculate the reason but I assume that it portends an upgrade to their Offers product line. If you have created a free Places coupon in the UK the only way to currently access or edit the coupon is to change the country flag in the drop down.
May 18, 2011
I saw this tweet from Google last night and had a flush of excitement, at least for a second, as I thought that Google had finally solved a perennial problem for SMBs; how to track their reviews in Places.
I immediately rushed over to their post, thinking I would stay up late to write up a report only to find that it wasn’t the long awaited business solution to easily knowing when there was a new Google review for you business. Silly me thinking that Google has solved a long standing problem. Nothing so elegant.
No, it is an RSS feed so that reviewers have a feed of all the reviews they have created and a way of importing more Places via an RSS feed.
Businesses have needed and wanted a solution to the review problem since the introduction of Places pages in 2009.
When was the last time you heard a reviewer ask for an RSS feed of their reviews? Well maybe some reviewer some place did… but then I suggest you follow Google instructions and go find it. Instead of attaching it to the obvious place in your main Google profile or making the existing review list more visible it is is hidden in your Hotpot area.
Google needs to be making local products easier to use, not harder. They need to be making Places a page that a business can’t live without. Hopefully we will see a solution to the review tracking problem some day. In the meantime, one has to wonder whether this type of upgrade is the best way for Google to spend limited local resources.
Note: Getlisted.org and MyReviewsPage.com both offer solutions to this problem that Google should have addressed long ago.
May 9, 2011
Bightlocal has released their findings from their Local Consumer Review Survey 2010, Part 3.
The survey highlights some interesting findings -
27% of consumers have recommended a local business on Facebook – rising to 32% in female consumers & also in younger consumers (aged 16-34)
Reliability, Professionalism & Friendliness are the most important traits that lead to a customer recommending a business
52% of customers would more likely to recommend a business if it had a good special offer.
40% of customers would be more likely to recommend a local business if they benefited directly
You should visit the site for all of the information but here are some of the highlights that interested me.
Which of these local business types have you/would you recommend to someone you know if you had a good or bad experience?
The types of businesses that are most frequently recommended are those that are most frequently used.
In the last 12 months have you recommended a local business to people you know by any of the following methods?
People are more lilkely to use word of mouth and Facebook to recommend local businesses than a review site.
Would you be more likely to recommend a local business to people you know if they had a good value offer or discount?
Folks are obviously motivated by self interest.
As Myles points out the things that people find important to recommend a business have always been the things that they have found important. A business should be friendly, professional and offer good value in the form of incentives.
But the survey raises the question of how, when and where a business should engage in the process and what value reviews have. Hopefully more on that tomorrow.
