Plamen Barzev alerted me to the existence of a local listing display that includes a video. The display showed for the search term plumbing charleston sc on the listing for Tamsberg Plumbing. Their site is a single page site done by Localedge.
Whether this is a test or a new display type is unclear. When you look at the underlying code and compare the video listing (C) with the B listing you can see that Google is using a different display class. When you examine the underlying HTML most of the listings share a class of “g”, the video listing however shows a class of “g videobox”. Why it is missing the address and pin though is unclear.
This must be some kind of early test. Yes, yes, I know that with Google there’s no way to know for sure. But it seems to go completely against Google’s trend of pushing G+ as hard as it can. Essentially the only way to get onto the G+ page from the SERP is to hover over the result until the “preview” pane shows up on the right, and then to click “13 Google reviews” or one of the less-compelling buttons up top (e.g. “Directions”). But there’s no way for the lazy man to get to the G+ page without having to move his cursor all the way over to the preview.
I also find it interesting that this is a service-based business. Not only have they not “hidden” their address, but obviously they don’t have an upgraded/social G+L page. Yet another reason why this seems oddly divorced from the Plus push.
Comment by Phil Rozek (98 comments) — January 8, 2013 @ 5:39 pm
@Phil
Odd it is. It has been in place for over 10 days which is weird if it is just a test. But the lack of address and phone number make it seem very out of place.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1944 comments) — January 9, 2013 @ 9:18 am
It’s also strange that it’s not a youtube video, and that the video is not on the Plus Local page itself.
Comment by Chad Kimball (26 comments) — January 9, 2013 @ 10:21 am
It appears to be a blend of a regular video result (due to the video on the localedge page) and a +/Places listing. The Tamsberg domain on their local listing redirects to the localedge page, which is likely what is allowing the unique combo to occur.
Comment by Tom Waddington (3 comments) — January 9, 2013 @ 11:38 am
What really bothers me is the “Superpages” listing with a blatant violation of listing guidelines: “Plumbers in Charleston SC – SuperPages”
My speculation after reading the post before this, we will see more directory listings appearing as Google will cash in with the big cash machines (Yellowpages, Superpages etc) and small businesses will be forced to pay the directory co’s in addition to the gods of Google…
–Dennis
Comment by Dennis (47 comments) — January 10, 2013 @ 12:11 am
@Dennis
It is a shady listing but superpages wasn’t involved with its creation. The business name for the listing is “Charleston Plumbing Services”. This doesn’t appear to be an actual company but a tactic someone is using to get a phone number for Benjamin Franklin Plumbing in neabry Mt Pleasant into the Charleston local listings.
Comment by Tom Waddington (3 comments) — January 10, 2013 @ 1:57 pm
Tom,
The listing takes me to Superpages dot com so I don’t see how you can defend the listing?
Google should not even have it listed as I mentioned before, it’s a blatant violation of the listing guidelines.
Comment by Dennis (47 comments) — January 10, 2013 @ 2:16 pm
I’m not defending the listing at all. It is in violation of the guidelines and should be removed.
Comment by Tom Waddington (3 comments) — January 10, 2013 @ 4:47 pm
[...] find a specialty lawyer last year. The research has implications for local as we have have seen pinned results in the wild that include them. Obviously the relative merits there have not yet been [...]
Pingback by Video Snippets Vs. Author Images – Which Have Higher Click Through Rates? | Understanding Google Places & Local Search — March 13, 2013 @ 2:40 pm