Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Last week when Google Map’s new Place’s pages were introduced it was noted that they were not going to be indexed (there is a great discussion going on at Greg’s blog now) leaving the impression amongst many that they would sit, isolated, in the Maps siloh. They would, it was thought, only be seen to users deep inside of Maps.

Google’s plans seem more ambitious and grand than that. Places pages will, over the next 6 months or so, not only appear across all of Google’s mapping platforms (Google Earth, Mobile and perhaps the iPhone) but they are likely to start appearing in the main search engine results. There they will perhaps push less worthy geo & business brand pages off to the second and third pages of the results, affecting traffic results and business plans for a number of players.

Peter Wypanski, an SEO in Philadelphia, noted that the Google robots.txt shows a nofollow for Places: Disallow: /places/. Technologist Chris Silver Smith though pointed out on Twitter that a no follow in the “robots.txt doesnt mean Google wont index a page- only that they wont crawl it. Link 2 profile = it’s indexed”.*

And indexed these pages are. If you search on the Burdick Chocolate Cafe Boston, an example that Google disseminated widely during their pre announcement briefings, you will find it on page one of the search results.

Chris Silver added that

“The keyword optimized URLs** appear to be key towards showing the intent: they intend those URLs to be highly friendly, easy for people to send to friends, and they intend the URLs to live for a long while. Very different from URLs we’ve seen heretofore in Google”.

“I think that this is to local what Wikipedia has become for factual information. If you can generate a central page collecting information about every single place in the world, then the world won’t beat a path to your door — you’ll already own the path.”

What are the implications?

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Update:: Google Confirms 10 Pack Expansion

Google’s newest showing of Local results on non geo modified phrases will dramatically enhance the role of local data and of branded local data in search. Its impact will be felt every where from the local dentist to the largest retail brands in the US. It offers up the prospect of modifying the behaviors of businesses, searchers and search marketers alike.

From Mumbai to Missoula, from Mom and Pop’s to McDonald’s, from soccer moms to search mavens, from Mapspammers & Merchant Circle to Mapquest, all are going to feel the affect of Google’s recent increase in showing Local results to non geo targeted, but locally relevant phrases.

Yesterday as news of the development spread, local search writers noted the significance of the increased role that local would play in search with descriptions like game changer, large implications, welcome development, reflects real user intent:
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Google Maps recently introduced a new user interface for the Local Business Center. There were some issues with the upgrade and Carter Maslan, Google’s Director of Product Management for Local, agreed to answer some of my questions about the process in a phone conversation.

MB: What was the goal of the upgrade? What prompted the change?

Carter: We wanted to address usability issues to make it simpler to get through the process and having it flow on a single screen was a big driver.

Usability was the main motivator…simple things like not a big enough map to be able to accurately move the pin, having a clear sense of where you are in the process etc. We were trying to address the flow through the enrollement to make it as fast and simple as possible

MB: What do you perceive to be the greatest improvements from the new interface?

Carter: We do a combo of usuability studies in labs and montior actual useage and user sucess rates. We look at both and try to improve the overall process…this was the first refresh of the UI in a while and was intended to pick up high payback UI changes.

MB: There were a lot of complaints in the Maps groups over the past 10 days. What was up?

Carter: All things will be fixed very very soon and those things not yet fixed should be ok within days…we were not able to replicate the bulk upload problem. But all problems [with the new Local Business Center] should be reported into the Maps Group and we will take a look.

The Maps team read the posts about problems on the local blogs and in the groups but their heads were down. The Team fixing the problems were totally heads down…so no one was available to give answers in the group.

The main point is that even if we need to work on proactive communication, the team is paying attention…and will try to do better on the communication.

MB: Was there a change in listing policy? The Pin is now required on all single entries? What precipiated that change?

Carter: We are experimenting with how much verification vs. how much ease of use. There are variables as to when to prompt…in the past it had been too liberal, and is becoming more stringent. We are experimenting on the quality of the listings and spam…there is no hard yes or no answer to the correct structure.

MB: Will there be some accomodations to facilitate entry for agencies and such? Will there be something like a Trusted Partner status?

Carter: We are contemplating something like the letter of agency policy for cell phone companies…we are fleshing out the details. We are interested in coming up with a way to allow people with good intentions to do so…for both bulk uploads and multiple singles entries.

We initially are looking at it primarily geared toward primary sources…like a chain. How do we make it easier for the chaim to control the records even if there is conflicting info from a secondary data source?

The first step is for to us to provide simplified verfication for use by primary data providers like a national business or chains…whether it extends to other aggregators or agencies is in discussion.

We hope to have this available soon…less than a year and maybe as soon as a quarter. We are working through the process.

MB: Is there short term efforts to integrate analytics and adwords

Carter: What would you like to see with analytics? What should we do?

I am not on the ad word team…we do have joint discussions on how to make everything simpler…the auction concept is difficult and there are discussions on how to simplify and to maximize an ad campaign. But for now we will stay diedicated to getting basic listings up and running.

MB: Is there a plan to roll out the new Local Business Center interface to the international market? What is the time

One of the more vexing problems in local search has been erroneous address & phone data showing for a bricks & mortar location in the main Google search results in the Plus Box. For a screen shot of the issue click here.

Small business owners have flocked to the Google Maps for Business Group in search of answers on the apparently untrue assumption that the data in the Plus Box comes from the Local Business Center record.

I recently theorized that the primary source for this erroneous information was the business website itself. That seems true as far as it goes. Apparently though there are other web “signals” that will trigger the Plus Box and if a business has relocated in the past several years it is likely that the information will be wrong, even if the website and the Local Business Center record has been correctly updated.

This recent request to the Google Maps for Business Group motivated me to look deeper into where this information might come from if not the business’s website. It appears that the source is either a high page rank directory site with a Maps API display or one of the many Yellow Page resources that Google uses as a secondary, confirming source for address information.

The upshot is that the (incorrect) Plus Box data appears to come from:
•Your Website
•Secondary business listing data suppliers to Google like the YellowPages
•High PageRank Directories that use a Google Maps API to geolocate the incorrect address

These sources would need to be changed for Google to “get it right”. There may be other sources but a creative search of Google should turn those up. I would suggest your prioritize your “cleansing” efforts by the list above. In this particular case, I found 62 web references to the wrong address. I do not think that all need to be changed.

Clearly Google could simplify this correction process in a number of ways. They could simply prioritize Local Business Center data when they have it. Barring that choice, they could provide details as to the sources of their data so that it could be purged more easily from the index.

The current system of begging in the Groups is obviously an inadequate response to a problem that from the SMB’s perspective is pressing. It is particularly so when customers end up at the wrong address due to the erroneous Plus Box. In these cases the business complaint should be addressed immediately and the business treated as a partner that helps Google generate accurate data.

Here is the original query from the Maps Group in its entirety and my research and response:
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Birds do it, bees do it and apparently Google’s Local Data does it too….recreates your business record like crazy. Some sort of asexual digital reproduction I suppose as some business records start appearing in Google Maps multiple times…not just once or twice but possibly as many as 4 or more (users report as many as 12 records).

Its disconcerting for a business owner to search Google Maps for their single store listing record only to find a plethora of them, some accurate and some not. The problem is widely reported in The Google Groups for Business forum.

The problem partially stems from from lesss than clear instructions in the Local Business Center. If you “delete” a record from your Business Center it actually returns to the index. You are in fact just deleting it from your Business Center control panel. It is necessary to “suspend” your record instead. While this contributes to the multiple listing problem and makes managing them more difficult it is not the core of the problem.

Google’s algorythm (originally described here and here by Bill Slawski) aggregates information on businesses from multiple data sources and websites. These sources are as varied as Yelp, its own indexes, internet yellow page sites, InfoUSA and other buinessnes listing aggregators.

In the ideal world their local algo sifts through all of that data,matches data source X with list Y and successfully creates or augments your business record in Google’s Local data set. It then presents the for the business owners control in the Local Business Center.

But the world of local data and Google’s manipulation of it is far from ideal. Apparently when records are scoured from across Google’s multiple data sources they frequently show up as a new records rather than merged with the existing (hopefully accurate) record.

Google’s expectation is that the business owner will take control of these additional listings and suspend them as appropriate and then wait the 6 to 8 weeks for Google to update their local index. This decidedly low tech response to a hi-tech problem has proven frustrating for the many business owners that comment on the Google’s Maps for Business Group.