Today Google announced the integration of business pages with Google + and the demise of their Google Place page. This is a change that has long been anticipated and one that simultaneously gives a business more control over their page AND dramatically enhances the review environment. Greg Sterling has a good overview of how specific details will change.
Effectively Google + has become a destination for local search and a shared local experience. And tasks that were accomplished on the Place Page like reviews will happen on Plus instead. This explains the missing review buttons on mobile and the desktop.
According to Greg Sterling “Not unlike some similar functionality offered in Foursquare, users will be able to sort and filter search results by several criteria, including “your circles,” which will reveal places “touched” by friends. Currently this means reviews and posts, but could extend to check-ins later.”
But while the display of the page has changed, many other parts of the local ecosystem at Google have remained the same. Google Places is composed of three parts; the business listing display, a backend management tool and a ranking system.
This change essentially moves the location of the business listing display, gives a business more control over the visuals and allows for more segmented social activity around reviews. However the current backend, the Places Dashboard will remain the primary location for input.
Here is what I posted at David Mihm’s recent article about the coming Place – Plus merger:
There is no doubt that Google is integrating (slowly) Places with the social backbone and the single login logic of their update. There has also been a trend away from highlighting the stand alone Place page… For example Google has pushed the Places result out the front page with the rollover option and made the Places page difficult to get to from Maps…
So when thinking about what is coming I segment Places into three components
1)The display (search result or otherwise)
2)The SMB management interface
3)The back end architecture that assembles Places listings, dedupes the list, attaches reviews to a listing (or not 
)
Lets look at #3 first. This might be upgraded but it appears that the technology to automatically generate a business directory world wide will continue to persist and will survive any changes. Google is actively investing in the architecture with recent changes and tools & staff to fix the artifacts of its workings.
#1 – Certainly Google is interested in displaying search results where ever and when ever they make sense and can generate ad revenue. While Place Pages are perhaps being directly displayed less on the desktop they might still make sense in mobile. They most certainly would make sense in the context of Plus in the many ways that you point out.
#2 the Dashboard – It is likely that an SMB dashboard will continue to exist in some form or another. It will likely undergo a radical redesign so as to be able to provide a simple self service interface to Adwords, Analytics, Offers, Punchd etc. It makes all kinds of sense to add Plus to that mix for all the reasons that you point out. There certainly needs to be more reasons for SMBS to return to it but it seems unlikely that the primary interface for SMBS with Google will go away.
Essentially this has transpired. The Dashboard is still awaiting an update but Google has confirmed that it will remain the point of contact for creating a business listing.
The algo, while it will evolve to include more social signals, is still the algo and it will still rank businesses. It has been evolving right along but Google rarely throws away ranking algos rather they add and change the important elements.
As for the backend that assembles the listings, dedupes the list, merges similar businesses that too will stay. It is being improved and enhanced but over the past year signficant investments in this technology has been made and it will not disappear.
Google is still rolling out the change so the details of how all this will work are not yet clear. But they note “If you don’t yet have a Google+ Page for your business, we encourage you to create one now. And if you do already have one, hold tight for news on how to get it linked to your local listing.”
So while some has changed, and the change is important, it is incremental change and not revolutionary change. It is a change that will hopefully engage more businesses in claiming and keeping their “place” current and one that will hopefully engage more customers with the business.
But it is not a change that will fundamentally change (at least initially) how a business is ranked in the main search results nor how listings are created and assembled.
Wow, these changes are becoming increasingly hard to keep up with. Hopefully this is the last one in a while. Am I the only one who still types in google.com/lbc to get to my dashboard? I wonder how many redirects that goes through now…
Comment by menachem (2 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 10:21 am
Mike,
Looks like Zagat reviews will become an even more visible factor and help with conversions.
Ive noticed for clients who we had a google+ page set up for that it is connecting nicely with the old google places already. Hope this helps out with reviews disappearing and duplicate listings!
Thanks for sharing,
John
Comment by John Rizzo (1 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 10:26 am
Thanks Mike for getting this out so quick as I’d rather get your view than the bandwagon jumper’s.
I agree 100% w/ menachem in that these changes are tough to keep up with and business owners are still too busy making payroll so it’s business as usual I’m sorry to say!
Comment by Dennis (47 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 10:37 am
Menachem is right, the rapid fire changes are difficult to keep up with. One has to wonder – why is Google deliberately creating such a chaotic situation? I have my theories, but I’m going to sit on them for now…
Comment by Randy (21 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 10:37 am
Also, I wanted to mention – just imagine what a mess it’s going to be when you’re trying to manage the new Plus+Places, but your login for each is different….
Comment by Randy (21 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 10:41 am
Hah!
I mentioned this last week in Syracuse.
This is the change which will move all the G+ resisters off the mark.
Very, very interesting.
Comment by Will Scott (83 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 11:00 am
I am skeptical of these changes, only because I am worried about trying to get clients on G+. I have a hard enough time trying to get small businesses to adopt Facebook and Twitter. I am concerned that the small businesses I work with will get frusterated with the lack of engagement they see with folks on G+.
Comment by Eric Mobley (1 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 11:03 am
Oh my. Indeed a lot of changes. I agree with the top two commentators, and to Will, who anticipated and spoke to these changes as has Mike!!! Kudo’s for predicting these changes.
Of curiosity and this is directed toward Will, I’d be interested in how you choose pictures for some of your clients. I’m also interested in the reviews for some of those clients
and the sea changes never seem to end.
Comment by Dave Oremland (37 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 11:19 am
For franchises and multi-location businesses, there is still a big gap. While we can (for the time being) manage business information through a bulk data file for franchises on Google Places, we cannot submit same business data to setup Google+ Local Business pages?
Any information on how to help businesses that are in this predicament?
Comment by Tim (13 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 12:02 pm
Hey thank for the article. Do you know if the Google + page is automatically linked when you set it up and find it via phone number?
They haven’t been very clear about this in the months leading up to this.
Thanks.
Comment by Fletcher Walters (2 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 12:14 pm
Thanks for the round up Mike. I heard about the update this morning and raced to your blog. If the algo is going to continue to include social signals what do you think this means for the all mighty local citation?
Comment by Calin Daniel (1 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 12:39 pm
Oh Google, you are driving me CRAZY! Can you please tell me how a dentist can have a Zagat review rating on their places page?
Comment by Julie (3 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 12:39 pm
I have the same worries as Tim. One of my local clients (storage) has 400+ locations. While they have managed their local listings individually (via the Google Places bulk interface) their social media has existed @ an aggregate level (For example, one Branded Face Book Page, one Branded Twitter Account.)
Do you think we’ll be able to create one Google + page for a franchise type business and link it to all of the listings? Otherwise, I fear that my clients will either a) be forced to create (and manage!) 400+ Google + pages or b) Take a huge rankings hit!
I appreciate your thoughts!
Comment by Jessie H (2 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 12:50 pm
[...] we hear from Mike Blumenthal. Mike may be the only person in the entire Internet industry that actually deserves the title of [...]
Pingback by Will Google+ Local Get Good Reviews? — May 30, 2012 @ 12:54 pm
It is so hard to keep up and to run your own business. What will happen to all of the info and reviews on the Places page?
Comment by daniel (38 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 1:57 pm
[...] Places (Maps & Local) – Mike Blumenthal – 2:00 pm Apparently as part of the migration of Google Places to Google+Local pages, Google has updated & consolidated into one form the input forms for community edits and the [...]
Pingback by Google Updates Place Community Edit & Report a Problem Forms | Understanding Google Places & Local Search — May 30, 2012 @ 2:00 pm
How to get listed and transfer all the reviews to google plus?
Thanks.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 2:00 pm
Thanks for staying on top of this and sharing what you learn.
Looks like Google+ is showing only the first two categories that are listed in Places. The “owner verified” designation is also apparently gone. Perhaps it will be replaced by a link to the owner’s Google + page.
Comment by Matt Long (1 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 2:01 pm
[...] on this very quick, unscientific research, Mike’s and my hypothesis that what happened this morning is largely an interface update appears to be [...]
Pingback by Rankings on Google+ Local: Some Observations | Mihmorandum — May 30, 2012 @ 2:32 pm
[...] Coverage • Official Announcement from Google • Greg Sterling – Search Engine Land • Mike Blumenthal — General • Mike Blumenthal — Reviews • Matt McGee • Frank Reed — Marketing [...]
Pingback by It’s Finally Here: Chronicling the Plus-Places Merge | Mihmorandum — May 30, 2012 @ 2:33 pm
Mike, we attended a little tutorial today at the Austin Google office that I wanted to share with you and the rest of the posters. I did a public hangout, sorry for the quality…my laptop doesn’t have the greatest video capabilities.
http://youtu.be/cWqG-Au-nQE
Enjoy!
Comment by Jay (16 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 3:05 pm
Great breakdown of the days changes. My head is spinning as I still try to wrap my head around it all. I still think that the review system (new 30 point scale) is going to be very interesting in how it effects small businesses and their placement in local search.
Comment by Ryan (21 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 3:16 pm
I have a question now. My plus account is my personal gmail & my place page was with my business gmail. But I created a Business Plus page with my personal Google Plus account. Now that they are merged how to we connect the personal & business plus accounts?
Comment by RK Castillo (1 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 5:37 pm
[...] Google Places Pages Are No More – But What has Changed? [...]
Pingback by Roundup of Useful Pieces on Google+ Local (So Far) — May 30, 2012 @ 5:51 pm
[...] See also Mike Blumenthal’s commentary at: Google Place Pages Are No More – But What Has Changed? [...]
Pingback by Google+ Local Pages Delurk At Last » Nodal Bits — May 30, 2012 @ 6:17 pm
With this change you can see how serious they are in promoting Google Plus and trying to get more people to use it
Comment by matt (43 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 6:24 pm
It appears that the listings all have a “Is this your business?” and “Manage your page”.
I’m not seeing the old familiar “owner verified listing, just sayin!
Comment by Dennis (47 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 6:44 pm
Its a big mess, I took my business page setting, added Google + account, and now I lost my first page indexing. When I click on Maps, it appears there but without photosm reviews and everything else. Mess…. I am shocked that that a company like Google can do these modifications with so many issues.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 6:48 pm
Thanks for your input on this news. We’ve been intuitively encouraging *at least* a Google+ page to our small business clients who are social media-shy. Hopefully, this will give our suggestions a bit more backing. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Comment by Tabita Green (3 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 7:14 pm
Thanks for the breakdown Mike – I appreciate your insights as to what this means for ranking.
The key take-away I see here is that sure a lot of things are changing, and while there will be some new opportunities, the fundamentals for ranking are still the same.
Of course we’ll have to watch this over time. Man is it going to be a challenge for the average business owner to learn and engage on Google+…
Comment by Don Campbell (25 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 7:14 pm
This makes me wonder if “Local” will just slowly disappear. Why have both a Google+ Business Page, and a Google+ Local listing? It would seem more streamlined to have everything in one place.
Comment by Brady (1 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 7:51 pm
How to claim your existing Google Plus page?
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 9:01 pm
Thanks “Jay” for the link to the video presentation; I found it quite helpful. I can see this is going to be messy. Multiple ‘sign in’ – ‘sign outs’ to work on different accounts is a hassle; perhaps a platform similar to AdWords MCC would help with this.
I spent the day changing arrangements I’d made to head to Vegas for some sun; but that’s out the window now. As a result, I’m just starting deal with this issue.
I, like many others, am wondering what to do with my larger client’s who are hesitant about having to engage in this type of activity. My understanding is that to have a Google+ Business Page, one needs to have a Google+ Profile first (similar to FB), so now I’m having to figure out who in the larger companies is going to have the Google Profile, the owner, the CEO, or the Business Manager? yikes!
Comment by Andy Kuiper (233 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 9:05 pm
@Greg
Something similar happened to me – fell out of places pages for main keyword search, checked my places page and all my reviews have just disappeared. Just checked it in the new G+ and it just says I dont have any reviews yet. I didnt have many – only 11 but they take friggin ages to get and now they have gone. So annoyed….
Dropped from 1st to 12 in Penguin update – lost all my big keyword traffic. Roundabout the same time I ran into a dupe content issue because of a small blogspot site which I synidicate snippets of my content to – hence lost all my long tail traffic and now this!
Think Googles trying to tell me something! Wouldnt mind if I had a naff site but its 200 posts of unique, original content published over two years. I have been killed by google over this last 5 weeks….
Have to get back on the horse somehow though – ho hum….
Comment by Andy W (2 comments) — May 30, 2012 @ 9:08 pm
Basic question, as I am more a marketing person than tech savvy. I assume I can add new businesses via the Google Places dashboard, and that they will at least appear with the photos I upload on the Google Places search on iphones and androids.
It appears as if some photos have disappeared from the iphone listing for some businesses I set up about a week ago.
So another way to put my question is whether these changes basically effect the way a business appears on the desktop, or do they significantly effect the appearance of a listing on an iphone via Safari?
Comment by Laura from Cabo (4 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 11:14 am
As someone who shoots videos and uploaded them to Google Places I am very disappointed I can no longer put video on the pages. Why would Google+ no longer allow video?
Comment by Joe (30 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 1:48 pm
@Joe
I don’t hink it is gone permanently and I don’t think it will be long before it reappears. I think they are redoing it.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 1:55 pm
@Laura
No they shouldn’t significantly affect the appearance of the listing. Google may misplace things from time to time but the listing should show more or less the same.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 1:56 pm
Thanks for keeping us informed Mike. One thing I noticed that deeply concerns me is the reviews have lost their profile links. For months I have been tracking fake reviews in various industries such as Car Dealers. One way to see who is blatantly buying reviews is looking for patterns in the reviewer profiles and their past reviews.
It appears that many car dealers hire companies to immediately post 5 reviews everytime a bad review is posted. I have tracked the posters and unfortunately review spam is a huge problem in Google Places. I wonder why Google is hiding the review history of the review posters?
I hope they do not plan on hiding the reviewers past review history in the future. It is hard to believe reviews when many of them are fake.
Any thoughts on this??
Comment by Jeffrey Taylor (1 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 2:35 pm
@Jeffrey
Going forward users will need a Google+ account and theoretically will have to use their real name. Those reviews will be visible under their profile. You can see mine here.
But you are correct that all old review poster detail will be lost UNLESS the reviewers choose to use their same account to place new reviews. They will then be forced to make their name public and the history will reappear. In the meantime the scammers have gotten an “amnesty” on tracking the existing reviews.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 2:48 pm
Mike, I hope it’s not too long. I just spent a LOT of money on marketing material and upgraded video equipment. Thanks.
Comment by Joe (30 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 3:40 pm
@Joe
The Google Place Page now the Google+Local page is the last page you should leverage your video, not the first.
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and video results from there show in the main search results so they are more powerful than a video that is buried on a Google+Local page.
They are also powerful on the client website.
That being said it is likely one of the first features that will be added.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 5:10 pm
@Mike,
Thanks for your response to my comment/question # 34. Here in Cabo, Google Places is not used nearly as much (mostly by hotels and restaurants). I am making a basic living adding new businesses, such as physicians, dentists, salons and restaurants and bars. The “Google has confirmed…” link to the small biz blog sounds a tad ambiguous to me and I am freaking out:
“Continue to manage through Google Places for Business
If you are a business owner, you should continue to manage your information in Google Places for Business. You’ll still be able to verify your basic listing data, make updates, and respond to reviews….”
They don’t explicitly say you can Add a new business listing. I did add some yesterday and today, received the phone verification, etc. and they are showing as activated but they are not yet published. You would place my mind at ease if you would confirm that they will in fact activate and publish the Google Places new business listings I am adding on Google Places Mobile. Google doesn’t do very good writing and I sure hope your interpretation is correct or I am facing destitution in our hurting economy down here.
They did nicely create some Google + Local pages for many of my older client businesses. It’s the creation of new client listings that I am worried about.
Gracias!
Comment by Laura from Cabo (4 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 7:44 pm
The most horrible feature in Google + is showing the reviews as “most useful”. My friend has a body shop business with 27, five star reviews and 2 one star, which were left 3 years ago. And they are showing up on the top as a default. He worked very hard to improve his work and people were getting happy. Now with the new Google + these 2 old reviews are showing on the top, is the most pathetic thing I ever seen. Yelp has a similar thing, the display as useful, but in the past 3-4 months, not 2 years.
Very upseting!
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 8:27 pm
@Laura
Rest assured. They will in fact publish. There is some delay in the system (usually about 72 hours) between submit and it showing. I can’t guarantee that Google won’t screw your ability to make a living in some other way but not the one you currently fear.
As to the owner verified seal, Google ‘s Vanness said in her post that they are working on that.
@Greg
Thats a good point. Hopefully he has made a great owner response to the criticisms that would endear him to his future clients?
I am also assuming that if you had a few friends and employees go in and flag other reviews as “Most helpful” that those would float to the top. Let me know.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — May 31, 2012 @ 9:01 pm
[...] engines.Businesses that haven’t claimed their listings in Google Maps, or Google + pages, or whatever hybrid of the two that Google is working upon these days should consider claiming both, and making them as rich and [...]
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Pingback by Will Google+ Local Be A Ghost Town? - Local SEO Guide — June 1, 2012 @ 1:45 pm
Your information on google local plus is eye opening and educational. I am here because I am conerned since I will be signing up with a service that helps me list with local directories, google places, etcc and now google local plus…
Concerned about the following:
* should i set up still a google place page as well and setup a google local plus page as well
* how do I go about optimizing my totally new google local plus page never had a google place page before, any thoughts on how to optimize my new local plus page for the search engines for social networks as well…
Comment by ed (1 comments) — June 7, 2012 @ 12:22 am
@Ed
should i set up still a google place page as well and setup a google local plus page as well
For the time being, when you set up a page using the Google Places for Business dashboard it will feed data to the Google+ Local page that is likely already showing for your business in Google+. So yes you should definitely go ahead and set up the page and verify it. For the time being it will not show as claimed but it will be. The page that resides within Google+ has replaced the Place page that used to show in Google Maps etc.
The real question is whether you should set up a Google + personal account and then create a Google + Business page. (the terminoly is very misleading). This part is optional.
If you do set it up it will be a separate entity from your Google+ Local page until such time as Google merges them. That will be occurring over the next few weeks/moths.
If however you wait until they are merged you can also set your Google+ Business page at that time.
It is your choice. If I were you, I would set up all three things now on the same email address. And get familiar with the Google+ Business pages, perhaps do several posts, follow some people in your industry and become familiar with it.
That way once your two pages (The Google+ Business page & the Google+ Local page) merge you will have a head start.
Rest assured though if you do not create the Google+ Business pages now you will still be able to so after they merge.
You optimize your Google+ Local page the same way that you did the Google Place page.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — June 7, 2012 @ 12:49 am
My places page became google +, but photos are missing, how do I add them?
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — June 7, 2012 @ 1:31 am
[...] David Mihm observed that the bulk of content above the fold was Google’s. Last week, with the upgrade to G+ local, Google removed the engaging 5-star graphic from regular business listings and replaced [...]
Pingback by Google: We Can Show Stars if We Want to! | Understanding Google Places & Local Search — June 12, 2012 @ 12:01 pm
Google merging something with G+ hmm. I wonder if their are ulterior motives such as gaining a market share in the social media sector. As much as I like Google their constant changes to algorithms make me wonder are they actually interested in creating good products of keeping the system just unstable enough to make 37Billion from Adwords. Anyways thanks for the post Mike
Matt
Comment by Matt (43 comments) — June 26, 2012 @ 11:06 am
How to link videos to google + pages? There is no tab for videos. There is one on individual + account
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — July 13, 2012 @ 2:27 pm
GReg
The video functionality is broken. Google is planning on an upgrade/overhaul of the video upload capability at some point in the near future. Nothing to be done till then.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — July 13, 2012 @ 4:17 pm
I must be the only person who dislikes Google’s recent push to integrate everything into Google+. Where I used to be able to use Picasa as a spot to upload family photos for family to see, and not to share them amongst any or all of my G+ friends (mostly work friends), Google forces my hand, and even posts my photos without exactly asking so I’m looking for another photo service.
Same story here with Google places. Sure, it’s probably great for a business to be able to see what my real name is and for all my friends to know what businesses I frequent, but for me, the consumer, it doesn’t help me at all, and is yet more advertising. Google places used to be my, well, place, to review a business anonymously and honestly, with it being shared on G+, I’m reluctant to speak my mind.
On droid, Google even caches my family photos (from Picasa) again, without asking. This behavior would be fine for a personal phone, but it’s on my work tablet computer.
On Facebook, I’ve seen several friends who aren’t aware that their Facebook pages spew ads all day long because they “liked” that business. Apparently this is the business model Google is going for. Unified, ubiquitous. Scary.
Comment by Anonymous (6 comments) — July 23, 2012 @ 6:38 pm
Mike,
I used to have four or five different categories show up on my business Google Plus page. Now, it only shows one. When I go to the edit page, all my categories still exist though. I also noticed my competitors don’t have this problem. Is there a way I can fix this?
Comment by Joe (30 comments) — August 10, 2012 @ 3:02 pm
If you click on the category display you will see the additional categories.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — August 10, 2012 @ 9:30 pm
Wondering if you can clarify something for me… Do I need to create a new page on Google Plus/Local if my info seems to have been transferred over from my Google Places page already? I had claimed my page in Google places a while back. Do I need to claim it again in Google Plus? While my photos and reviews do appear to have been transferred over, the “at a glance” description does not show for my listing when I do a search for “dog boarding” in Granada Hills. Also, even though I uploaded 5 videos to my Places Page, none of them show up on the new Google Plus page. I also tried changing the url listed through my dashboard and though I saved it, the old url still shows up on my Google Plus page. Totally lost here. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Comment by Denise (19 comments) — September 12, 2012 @ 11:39 pm
@Denise
Google Place pages were automatically transferred over to Google Plus and are now called Google+ Local pages. However that was just the first part of the process of integrating them into Google Plus. You will (at some point) need to create a personal profile at Google Plus AND a Google Plus Page (for local) that is associated with that profile. Currently you can merge your Google+ Local page and your Google Plus Page by verifying them.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — September 13, 2012 @ 11:02 am
Really useful feedback Mike, on what is a confusing part of maintaining your web presence.
My places listing seems to have re-appeared after a 4 month hiatus and my reviews (or some of them at least) have returned.
What are your thought on citation gathering in order to help maximise your Places visibility? I see a few companies offering citation services to US clients and a few other countries.
Do you think Google are relying heavily on citations when ranking Places pages?
Comment by Andy W (2 comments) — September 13, 2012 @ 12:02 pm
@Andy
Citations in all of their forms is an integral part of building out your local brand and making your business more visible on Google. It isn’t the only thing and perhaps isn’t the most important thing but it is a critical part of the plan.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — September 13, 2012 @ 3:48 pm
I’m not sure this problem has anything to do with the changeover to Google Plus or not. On my iphone 4s, under Safari I cannot get the Places tab to open and instead I just get a places-oriented searchbar for that is like regular google search but with the word Places underneath it. Search results are not the formatted list of places where you set your location and the formatted listings appear.
This has happened in the past when I switched from the places tab to a regular google web search. But I could hit the back button until I hit my last Places Tab search and could resume searfching again. Today, that stopped working. When I got back to the Places tab everything looked normal until I ran a search and no search results would come up at all. I then deleted all history, etc. and now cannot get the tab to open at all. I am freaking because this aspect of Google Places/Plus as it appears on the iphone search is an important part of my business here in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.
Any ideas please? I’ve searched all over with no answers. BTW, when I click on the News or the Images tabs, they open just fine. It is only places that doesn’t go to the tab and instead just goes to the Places-oriented regular websearch.
Comment by Laura from Cabo (4 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 1:48 am
On my claimed Google business page 2 tabs are missing, which I see in other places, and they are Videos and Posts. How do I fix this issue?
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 10:15 am
Follow up to my comment 62.
In fact what I am getting is just regular “web” google search and not the google places. It worked fine yesterday as I was about to demonstrate a search result for “Pizza” to a client where our town, San Jose del Cabo, was already set as my location. I then accidentally hit another app on my iphone that uses google web search and also prompts for login.
Normally, I can just back button out of this situation and get back to the places tab. But when I did it this time a blank would appear for the search resuts and I also kept getting prompted with that same login from the other app.
Now, what I see is that when I hit places tab, places does not load up in the URL and in fact Web is what is loading up and Web is the tab that is activated. Images and News as I mentioned above also activate; Places does not. That is such a nice feature for a mobie phone to display only the easily scrollable list of formatted places listings instead of myriad search results. Plus, down here only about 10 categories of businesses or so aggregate on regular Google searches into a map with places, so that you can’t guarantee all clients that they wil appear in any way on Google other than via the Google Plus Page on Google Maps on the PC or via the unadorned results on Google Maps mobile. Or of course the not so wonderful Google Local App
Any help or even a source for getting help for this weird problem would be very appreciated.
Comment by Laura from Cabo (4 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 10:15 am
Greg,
I’m no expert but that happened to me as well so I wanted to share what worked for me. I started off with just having my old business page that I had claimed with Google Places about a year ago. It wasn’t showing the videos and posts tabs either. Then about a month ago, as per Mike Blumenthal’s instructions in post #59, I created a personal profile at Google Plus and a Google + business Page for local tied to that profile. I then verified the Google + business page (they sent me a code by mail and I entered it in to complete the verification). Soon after, everything seemed to magically merge together. My new Google + business page had the video and posts tabs along with the about and photos tabs. And all but one of my reviews were transferred over as well. Hope that helps.
P.S. Mike, thanks for the great advice. Any idea why they got rid of one of my reviews? It actually showed for a while but then disappeared later. That was pretty irritating given I now have 9 reviews and my zagat score doesn’t show anymore. Could it be that it was too short of a review (it was maybe 4-5 sentences. Also, the client had copied and pasted it from a post she had made on my Facebook page. Duplicate content issue maybe?
Comment by Denise (19 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 2:08 pm
@greg
What Denise said. You can search my site for a step by step to the process as well as a guide to merge or not to merge. The merge is not quite ready for prime time and a business should look before leaping.
(Sorry for brief reply but am airport on my iPhone)
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 2:42 pm
It did not work for me. Here is what I had:
https://plus.google.com/112274602693370984890/about?gl=US&hl=en-US
And here I created Google + business page.
1. It did not ask for verification
2. There is no Review button.
3. It did not merge.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 4:58 pm
Forgot to include the 2nd link
It did not work for me. Here is what I had:
https://plus.google.com/112274602693370984890/about?gl=US&hl=en-US
And here I created Google + business page.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/104526175296355076513/104526175296355076513/about
1. It did not ask for verification
2. There is no Review button.
3. It did not merge.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 5:12 pm
Greg,
On your original page (the first link you posted), I think if you click where it says, “is this your business/manage this page,” they might ask you to go through the verification process which would eventually cause the pages to merge. Not sure though.
Comment by Denise (19 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 7:52 pm
It goes direct to the dash board, because I already verified a year ago.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 8:11 pm
I found it, there is a verification for Google + business. I did not notice at first. The question is the reviews will they all transfer? Google should have done it automatically.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 8:22 pm
This is absolutely insane.
Al of a sudden my verification button disappeared. I created another page and soon the other verification button disappear
Where am I supposed to enter the verification code after receiving the postcard? It gives me another “create a new page” again!
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/114046009907801095642/114046009907801095642/posts
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 27, 2012 @ 9:00 pm
Greg this sounds similar to a problem Matt Gregory reported at my forum yesterday and 2 users at the G forum also had the problem.
We escalated to Google but no word yet.
Posting links to both threads so you can see if same problem and follow for updates. 1st post from Matt includes screenshots.
Possible Bug: Verification Feature Disappears
“verify now” button on + business page has disappeared! Can’t verify now… – Google Groups
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — September 28, 2012 @ 12:53 am
Greg,
Yikes! You probably should wait for someone else to answer because I’m only speculating here…
In regards to your post #71, I think the reviews will automatically transfer after you’ve entered the code on the postcard that you’ll be receiving shortly-assuming you re-claimed your business page on Google Plus.
As for why your verification button disappeared, the only thing I can think of is that you’ve already put in for the verification so it doesn’t give you the option to do it again. When you receive your code in the mail, I think the postcard should give you the url that you are supposed to go to to enter the code.
But like I said, better off waiting for someone who knows what they are talking about to answer.
Comment by Denise (19 comments) — September 28, 2012 @ 12:55 am
It amazes me that Google, a billion $$$ company would have so many issues with Google pages, reviews, etc. 3 Months since the Google + took over the old business pages system, I still did not find any solution and so are my clients.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 28, 2012 @ 12:59 am
This one is incredible. I had a client with 49 reviews on the old business page.
This client in addition to our services hired Reach Local. They created a new page Google + page, no reviews on this page. in a week 30 reviews vanished with only 19 left. Took years to collect them from clients, and they all gone with a snap.
How do I return them back? This is absolute disaster. Are they all missing because of creating Google + page?
thanks…
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 3:17 am
@greg
They are missing because of either being temporarily misplaced due to having multiple listings or because they meet google’s profile for spam. See this post: What should you tell a client that has lost reviews
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 3:49 am
If they are marked for spam, that means that Google algorithm system is only 50% accurate, because each and every review was left by actual clients and they are 100% genuine! We collected each reviewer names and we have a back up of their review. To ask them re-post the reviews again will be a disaster. I had Yelp’s inaccurate filtering system on the top of my list, and they just moved to a second place.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 10:35 am
@greg
Re: that Google algorithm system is only 50% accurate
Given you multiple listings anything could have happened to your reviews.
You are assuming that your definition of accuracy is the same as theirs. They have noted that soliciting reviews is contrary to their desires. We still don’t know what that really means but clearly if at the end of 6 weeks your reviews don’t show back up the odds are that they have been identified as spam.
I am curious of the reviews that are not showing, how many have new G+ accounts with very little history?
PS sorry for errors or typos but I am responding in flight on my iPhone.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 11:59 am
One of my clients, who is a photographer gets his 75% reviews deleted from Google, either Google Plus or or not plus. In 2 years he collected 27 reviews, only 7 are remained and some of them from 2 years ago. All the google plus, but one was removed.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 12:04 pm
@greg
Right, likely it is something he is doing is triggering the filter. Is he helping create user accounts? Encouraging newbie Google users? Using a review station? Something in the way he is acting might be the cause. UNLESS it is from having duplicate listings or because of some name confusion. You won’t know till 6 weeks has passed the disappearance.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 12:22 pm
Thanks Mike for all your support. You are great!
One of my friends, ceo of appliance repair company is sending emails asking leaving just a simple feedback on Google about their services, without even asking positive or negative or whatever reviews. The results were 49% gets removed, the rest were deleted. He contacted his clients, who’s reviews were filtered, to try one more time, and change the content into a shorter one. Some of them did and about 10% were not filtered. Which makes 39% genuine reviews filtered. It shows that not only IP’s or Google plus, or whatever are the factors. Until we will have the verification system, like Amazon, the review system is nothing but frustration.
I must have contacted Google dozen of times, but there were only employees with no answers. They said that they are working on solving the problem some bugs. I have been hearing this for over 2 years. I even contacted Sergey Brin, CEO of Google, no answer what so ever. I wonder why… :0)
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 2:12 pm
I misprinted, and could not edit it. Here is the corrected post.
One of my friends, ceo of appliance repair company is sending emails asking leaving just a simple feedback on Google about their services, without even asking positive or negative or whatever reviews. The results were 49% got removed. He contacted his clients, who’s reviews were filtered, to try one more time, and change the content into a shorter one. Some of them did and about 10% were not filtered. Which makes 39% genuine reviews filtered. It shows that not only IP’s or Google plus, or whatever are the factors. Until we will have the verification system, like Amazon, the review system is nothing but frustration.
I must have contacted Google dozen of times, but there were only employees with no answers. They said that they are working on solving the problem some bugs. I have been hearing this for over 2 years. I even contacted Sergey Brin, CEO of Google, no answer what so ever. I wonder why… :0)
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 2:14 pm
@greg
1)there are thousands of businesses in the same boat
2)there is no answer other than what they have already noted: it’s either temporary or permanent. If its permanent its likely the spam filter.
3)if it is spam they will not say.
I would suggest that he read this post and come up with Plan B.
I can’t emphasize enough that he should NOT be encouraging clients to use Google if they are not already active there.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — September 30, 2012 @ 3:30 pm
In my opinion all the filtering systems will do worse for the consumer. It will create more fake reviews out there. Why…? Because if the genuine reviews will be deleted, companies will pay programmers who would find a way to by pass the filters or writers, write the reviews that would stick. Sad…
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — October 1, 2012 @ 8:25 pm
While I can’t speak to the issues people have experienced regarding reviews, I’ve helped numerous clients set up Google+ Local pages and Google+ Business pages and I can’t believe that months after this transition I’m still forced to have people verify they are the owner of the business twice over (one verification for the Google+ Local, formerly Google Places page, and once to merge the Google+ Local page with the Google+ Business page). Am I missing something?!? If not, I sure hope Google finds a way to streamline this process…
In addition to this complication, I feel like we’re all still beta testing their new system given my client’s issues adding people to circles, missing reviews, et. al.
I’d be more than willing to use Google+ more heavily myself, as I like the “slower” more in-depth social netwkring it and Facebook provide over the likes of Twitter and Pinterest, but if it wasn’t for the search engine positioning offered by Google+ pages, I’d be full back in the arms of Facebook by now!
Comment by Sean (6 comments) — October 3, 2012 @ 6:45 am
@sean
You can choose to just verify via G+ or Places for Business, you do not need to do both. If you just use the dashboard Google will auto migrate you at some point.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — October 3, 2012 @ 9:06 pm
I absolutely agree with @sean! Love your post BTW.
I have about 50 clients, that had old Google pages with still missing video tabs and posts. I read about claiming Google + , and asked some of the SEO companies for advice how to turn the old pages to a new Google +, and some of my clients did that with the verification again, and guess what? All of them have now 2 Google pages, one with no reviews and one with lost 80% of their reviews. A Nightmare…
I told the rest of my clients not to open the can of worms, stay as is and do anything. It looks like Google is not doing anything as of yet.
Comment by Greg (41 comments) — October 3, 2012 @ 10:51 pm
Hi Mike,
Our issue seems to be the reverse. We have a Google Places listing at the top on page 1 via a search of ‘building and pest inspection sydney’. The listing also is ‘richer’ than other listsings, with ‘About Us – FAQ’s’ etc listed underneath it.
The issue is however, we service the whole of Sydney. We used to have (until a couple of weeks ago) a normal organic listing in position number 1, 2 and then 3. It then all of a sudden turned into a Places listing only. Subsequently a noticeable drop in business with the Places listing. Prior to the change, periodically we would notice the listing would change one week from places to organic, but for a few months it remained the organic, normal listing.
We hadn’t done anything to effect this change. Our blog posts did stop however, so perhaps we need more fresh content on our resources/blog page??
I had some helpful info from Linda Buquet (see post below). We have implemented the change suggested, (and details of what ensue in the post). http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!mydiscussions/business/DAtqrTmvPa8
Any ideas on how we can replace our Places listing back to organic/normal listing?
We do not service customers at our location. It is a serviced office. Should we be ‘hiding address’? If so, the preview of our listing then shows the suburb ‘Glebe’ where our office is, and this looks worse, as it’s less information.
Hope you can help point in the right direction.
Many thanks, Cath J
Comment by Cath J (1 comments) — November 21, 2012 @ 7:16 pm