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

Greg Sterling has received “official confirmation” from Google that the Local OneBox will now often contain 10 listings (although could include 3 or 1 when appropriate). From Search Engine Land:

Google said today that the reason it’s showing more links is because usability testing revealed that many people didn’t realize there was additional local content available beyond the three listings, despite the “more results . . .” prompt. Accordingly, Google said that with the 10 links it is hoping to signal people that there is much more local content a click away.

The ranking of those ten results is based on a range of factors, including the query, proximity, availability of ratings/reviews and their quality and several other variables.

Google also said that it wouldn’t always show 10 results; it might still show three sometimes or one if the query is very specific.

I read “people didn’t realize there was additional local content available beyond the three listings” to mean that Google is striving for more Maps traffic in their competitive maps battle. It will be interesting to look at the Hitwise data to see if there is a similar increase to last year when the Local OneBox was upgraded.

It was just about one year ago that Google last upgraded the Local OneBox. At the time it led to a significant increase in Maps usage. It seems that an upgrade to the OneBox is or soon will be upon us. It was available all of last night and this morning and reports have come in from India and now the west coast. This change will have some impact on Google Maps traffic by increasing the inbound links to the maps area. A bigger change though is the impact it will have on bricks and mortar exposure and radically changing the nature and intensity of local search marketing tactics. You can read my thoughts on this change here , here and here

Here are some other reports from around the web on this change:

Google Local Business Results Expanded - Tim Cohn, Search Marketing Communications notes their appearance in Oklahoma

More Local Listings Live in Google? – Greg Sterling asks about the loss of the ratings

@Search Engines: How to Improve Your Local Search Interface – David Mihm, DavidMihm.com offers some interesting suggestions about improvements that Google might consider and issues that different users face.

Google Local Universal Search gets serious! Really serious. – Chris Thomas – Reseo Location: Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia

Update 1/22/08 9:40 PM EST It is once again appearingThe newly formatted Local OneBox expansion (first spotted by Paul Jahn last week and seen again on Sunday) from 3 entries to 10 now appears to be live. It started showing up last night and local searches are still returning the new OneBox as of this morning. Is it appearing internationally? Does it appear on every server across the U.S?Here is a screen comparison between the “neo-classic” 3 pack and the new Local OneBox 10 pack:To view this comparison at full size click here.The points of interest to me are:

•The area of coverage provided by the map is greater. This implies to me that there will be greater (although not likely an exact) match between the OneBox and Maps results

•It appears to have decreased the frequency of the Authoritative OneBox (more testing required)

•It actually is only occupying 10% more vertical room than the previous Local OneBox by making the pins smaller and going to one line instead of the three lines in the “neo-classic” Onebox. Occasionaly if there are long names or domains in the listing the text will drop below the Map image and take up slightly more space.

•This is done by having less information and fewer links for each listing. Also the pin is smaller.

•The new result also adds 14 additional links into Maps. Thus it seems that more traffic will be driven to Maps proper.

•It is also of interest that the reviews are emphasized as opposed to directions in the current OneBox. If there are no reviews than the “more” link is present.
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Update 1/21/08 9:00 pmThe Local Onebox 10 pack is now appearing across a broad range of searches once again. On searches that previously returned the authoritative Local OneBox it is now returning the 10-Pack or no local results at all.

Last week there were sitings of a new improved and expanded Local OneBox. They have reappeared temporarily in my local searches:

I speculated in my last post that it was taking up something less than 1/3 more room. It actually is only occupying 10% more vertical room than the previous Local OneBox by making the pins smaller and going to one line instead of the three lines in the “neo-classic” Onebox.

Of equal interest is that the area of coverage provided by the map is greater. The implies that it is more likely for the Local OneBox listing and the top 10 map listing to be the same. In the past, the difference that sometime occurred between the Local Onebox top 3 and the Google Maps top 3 was due to the different area of map coverage between the two (explained by Bill Slawski in his post on Location Prominence). This question of the difference, how it happened and why it was problematic was explored here and here. I did not have time to test this prior to the result no longer appearing. But one potential end user benefit would be matching results between the OneBox and Maps.

Here is a screen comparison between the “neo-classic” 3 pack and the new Local OneBox 10 pack:

To view this comparison at full size click here. Note also that in the exact same time frame (Sunday at 1:00) the search Buffalo NY Restaurant returned the neo-classic Local OneBox while the Bradford Pa Restaurant returned the LocalOnebox 10-Pack. Within the hour the Bradford search once again returned the LocalOneBox triplet result.

The other day when I wrote about the RSS feed results showing up in Google Maps and some of those results showing up in the Maps results I learned a lot:

•Lior from Google Latt-Longblog pointed out that the results from user generated Maps have been showing up in the main Maps results since October.

• Gregor Rothfuss and Barry Hunter pointed out that I could, in MY MAPS save any geoRSS feed or KML into my maps. Lior & Jen-Noel pointed out that it could also come from a Maplet.

•Barry also pointed out that its even possible to load non Geo enabled feeds into GMaps, with a Geocoding converter, and he provided an interface to one here:
http://www.nearby.org.uk/rss-to-kml.php

That all being said, I still didn’t understand how the feeds were making their way into Maps. I was under the assumption the MY MAPS were “user generated” and to some extent they are. Here is it what the LatLong Blog said:

It’s no secret that our users are the true experts on local information. Sometimes a tip from a friend or a friendly local can make all the difference.

Over the last year, we’ve been working hard to organize this local wisdom; we’ve sifted through millions of My Maps, KML files and other information created by all of you in the geoweb.

Google is in fact indexing geoRSS feeds and KML files from across the web and mapping these into Google Maps next to My Maps created in Google Maps. Occasionally Google is throwing one of these results into the top level Map results that they have indexed from across the web. I may be a little slow on the uptake as it took a while for this fact to sink in: Google is actively searching out and mapping this data. The reason that you are seeing mostly results from MerchantCircle and Topix is that those sites are the first to be geocoding their rss files.

This raises its own interesting questions:

•How is Google using this geodata? Is it being used to reinforce their top level Map results in the Maps ranking algo?

•What ranking factors does Google use to include community mapping info in these top level results? How does one influence and optimize for that? How high can one of these “blue pin” community maps entries go?

•Should a local website have a KML file indicating its location so that Google Maps creates a “community map” of that business? Does a site need a sitemap entry for this KML file?

•Will this KML file become the de facto file to indicate the bricks and mortar location of the local website? And should we start including them on the sites now?

Clearly, Google is building out a Maps structure that will include any and all geotargeted data that it can find. It will come from users with Google’s tools, or from sites generating their own KLM or geoRSS files and Google sucking that info up and mapping it.

As Google improves their ability to parse, evaluate and rank this information it is working its way into the higher level results. How this will play out in the future is unclear. Certainly it bodes for richer and more complete map information available on a broad range of devices like the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the Android phones and any device that can run Google Mobile Maps..

It also appears that any marketer of local sites will at some point need to familiarize themselves with this technology and integrate it into the overall marketing of local sites.

I am sure that most you saw the screen shot of Local OneBox test that Paul Jahn posted at searchengineguide.com (and was discussed by Greg Sterling) which shows the OneBox with 10 listings instead of the current 3:

There are several points of interest in the test.

•The space allocated at the top of the page is only about 1/3 more than currently allocated with the 3 listings.

•This is done by having less information and fewer links for each listing. They may also be using a smaller type face.

•The new result also adds 14 additional links into Maps. I had wondered recently, how much more traffic Google could send to Maps by adjusting links, obviously a lot more if they want to.

•It is also of interest that the reviews are emphasized as opposed to directions in the current OneBox.

It has never made too much sense to me to only highlight 3 local listings in the OneBox. Why 3 instead of 5, 7 or 11? The question for Google is: do the top 10 local listings provide more relevancy than 3 local + the organic results. My inclination is to say yes as my perception is that Google’s local results have improved over the past year.

The question for the business owner is why 3? Why should some businesses be rewarded and not others? Why not mine? Will the number vary by geography or industry?

I am glad to see Google testing this as there is no good reason for just 3. Determining the “right” number is another question altogether. At some point their value to the business owner though is diluted by the quantity and the viewer may be distracted as well.

Updated 9:00 am 1/18

One of the on-going problems confronting any local search environment is the difficulty of keeping local data fresh. The many gyrations and the long path of local data before it actually shows up in Google Maps almost guarantees a persistent accuracy problem.

Imagine though local sites that are closer to the end user and with “fresher” data feeding that data in real time into a Google My Maps environment. The implications are significant as RSS feeds from local sites provide a way to provide a potential layer in Maps that is “guaranteed fresh”. (Credit goes to Greg Sterling for providing insight & clarity on this point.)

Well it appears that Google Maps is allowing a limited number of “trusted” partners to provide exactly such feeds directly into My Maps. Merchant Circle with reviews and coupons and Topix with news are providing RSS feeds of their data to Google Maps via My Maps.

Here is a screen shot of a Merchant Circle Coupon feed from Indianapolis that shows up in Google My Maps:

At the bottom of the feed this disclaimer appears:

To view this feed in Maps just click here: Local Activity for Indianapolis, IN. There appear to be similar feeds for every city that MerchantCircle covers. Just to clarify, these results from the feeds are showing up, mixed in with standard Community Map results. It is conceivable to me that at some point they will be further blended with standard Map results in the future. For example if you searched on Dr Joe’s Chiropractic Center Idaho Falls Id you will find one of the pins from the feed mixed into the results.

Topix.com also seems to be providing feeds of news stories (see screen capture below) which offers up the interesting possibility of viewing news stories through a geo specific lens.

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With MacWorld today, Apple rolled out another leg of their mobile strategy with the new Macbook Air. You can read my summary of Job’s keynote at SEL. Mobile computing is taking on a number of new forms – phone, music player. Apple with their newly introduced computer are trying to sneak mobile in as a tiny fully functional computer. As the woman whose hands show in the photo says: “Its no thicker than my wedding ring, I should have asked my new husband for one of these instead.”

Google also had a big booth at MacWorld and was very busy promoting Google Earth and Maps for Mobile (as well as their Mac Apps and YouTube). Half of their booth was dedicated to geographic search tools and Google staffed the booths with knowledegable and high level staff. But alas they are hopefully going to get back to me on some details about Maps. (more…)

The following are the nominees in the Local Search category for the 2008 SEMMY Awards. The judge(s) will narrow this group down to 5-6 finalists. Congratulations to all nominees! Thanks for the recognition!

• Local Search Interviews, Information, and Resources
  Michael Gray, Graywolf | 2/5/07
• Location Prominence and Differences in Local OneBox and Google Maps
  Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 2/8/07
• Google’s forced choice for the Authoritative Web Site
  Mike Blumenthal, Understanding Google Maps… | 2/12/07
• Local Numbers: Setting the Record Straighter
  Greg Sterling, Screenwerk | 3/1/07
• Google Local Search Glossary
  Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 3/4/07
• The Latest Local Search facts and figures
  Simon Heseltine, Search Engine Tigers | 3/7/07
• Local Search: Users First?
  Cathy Hillen-Rulloda, Avante Gardens | 3/27/07
• Google Reviews: Reputation + Quality + Snippets + Clustering
  Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 4/6/07
• Yahoo tackles Geographic Challenges of Web Search Results
  Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 5/20/07
• Girl Scouts with Guns: Geographic Coding in Google Location Searches
  Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 8/5/07
• When Might Google Show Local Search Information in Web Search Results?
  Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea | 8/12/07
• Yahoo Local Now Features “User Denigrated Content”
  Mike Blumenthal, Search Engine Land | 9/11/07
• Everything You Need to Know About FRO (Fake Review Optimization)
  Andy Hagans, Tropical SEO | 9/20/07
• Five Reasons Why The Mobile Web Sucks
  Scott Karp, Publishing 2.0 | 9/26/07
• Give Local Search Marketing a Shout Out with PlaceShout
  Lisa Barone, Bruce Clay Blog | 10/11/07
• Local Search on Facebook
  Larry Sullivan, Local Biz Bits | 10/11/07
• Geotargeting Location by IP Address = SEO Death
  Andrew Shotland, Local SEO Guide | 10/14/07
• The REAL Problem with Local Search
  David Mihm, Mihmorandum | 10/25/07
• How many Google Coupons are there?
  Mike Blumenthal, Understanding Google Maps… | 11/3/07
• Anatomy & Optimization Of A Local Business Profile
  Chris Silver Smith, Search Engine Land | 12/17/07
• Google Reviews Review
  Miriam Ellis, SEO igloo | 1

Weather Channel Interactive Introduces New Weather Mapplet for Google – by The Weather Channel, GISUser.com
“The Weather Channel Interactive Introduces New Weather Mapplet for Google Maps. The Weather mapplet on Google Maps will be a part of the Featured Content section in the My Maps utility. The mapplet can be found by visiting maps.google.com. To find the weather layer on Google Earth, simply activate weather box under ‘layers’ in the sidebar.”

As Google strives for market share gains they have used a number of techniques to increase maps usage. They have extracted significant gains by keeping folks on their main search site and increasingly driving traffic to their maps product. There are only so many gains that can be achieved this way.

Increased functionality has and will increase market share and weather seems the perfect tool to provide that one stop mapping and increased Google Maps usage. I wonder though if by having this functionality in the My Maps area it will find enough usage to impact their market share.