Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Maps offers a New Feature: Easy Stars
Update 5/23: The Easy Stars are now visible in List view as well as Maps view
There is a new interface feature in Google Maps that allows a user to quickly favor a business listing. A user must be logged in and viewing the listings in the Maps view mode where an outlined star will be visible immediately after the business name.
Upon selecting the star it turns yellow and a the starred listing appears in the user’s MyMaps view (thanks to Stever of AxeMedia for the clue). The yellow star also appears on the listing in the main Map viewing area.
The feature allows a quick and easy way to create a MyMap list of favorite businesses or places in Maps for whatever purpose. Or as Miriam Ellis points out it could also be used to create a list of worsts.
At this point the MyMap is only visible to the logged in user that added the stars but it would be nice if this MyMap’s starred list could used to quickly create sharable public & embedable MyMap.
It is not clear whether the stars impact ranking.
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
10 Comments
I was noticing that. Does it artificially place your favorite business at the top of Local results, or just serve as a marker? I am testing it now and will let you know my findings.
Adding a favorite does not appear to artificially change rankings for the user who did the favoriting (personalized results). I tested it on a business that ranks near top in the 10 pack, but is page 2 inside Maps itself. No change in it’s placement in any results for me.
ty
Thanks for the nice mention, Mike.
Perhaps this will simply act as bookmarks do in other platforms…slowing increasing a profile’s perceived value because multiple people have favorited it.
By the way, Mike, thanks to you, I now have Beefeaters restaurant in MyMaps.
@Miriam
You? Favored Beefeaters? Hmm…you can unfavor it you know. I am not sure that you would the word getting around that you like roast beef on kummelwick. 🙂
Yes, I think think it might just increase a sites aggregate location prominence over time.
[…] L’ultima novità di GoogleMaps riguarda l’introduzione di una sorta di sistema di bookmarks per i marker dei risultati delle proprie ricerche. Siamo ancora ben lontani da poterlo definire un tool completo di gestione dei Preferiti, ma […]
[…] seeing them in my own account yet, I’m sure they’ll spread gradually much as the recent Easy Stars and instant updates have recently. Â Mike Blumenthal also has a very full screenshot […]
I haven’t noticed the yellow stars yet. Thanks for the headsup.
OK, now I have a star I don’t want on my map. How do I get rid of it?
Goto maps.google.com, search on and find the business with the star and then click on the star to “turn it off”. Its value, as became clear after this article was written is to provide a way to more easily find your favorite listings on your mobile phone
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