Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Places Search Results – Description Removed to Make Room For Search+Your World?
Obviously lots is happening both behind the scenes and in front of them in Places. The weird problems of dupes, locations not supported, bugs etc etc have skyrocketed in the forums, usually a foreshadowing of substantial changes.
And it seems that the missing Places description noted first by Mathew Hunt yesterday is the new normal at least for a day or two. The Places search authorship images noted over the weekend are still showing in some searches and there have been a number of new subtle interface tweaks. Actually it is probably better to look at it as a stop over on the journey. Where to I have no clue but we are going someplace.
Yesterday while looking at the new Places results without description with David Mihm, he pointed out the amazing amount of whitespace in the results when viewing in a Chrome browser.
That motivated me to review the Places results in different browsers and states (logged out, in with no personal results and in with person results on) to see if there was a discernible trend.
—————————
—————————
—————————
—————————
The results were much less spread out in Safari… but that is probably a temporary development issue. The inclusion of the mini-sitelinks with arrows is a new UI treatment seen over the past few weeks. One well worth striving towards. And one that takes space.
And while I don’t think this is the final show there is an interesting trend in the Chrome screen shots …. it appears that they are attempting to create adequate space in the local results for the many artifacts of produced by Search Plus Your World (GspyW).
Your thoughts?
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
13 Comments
They have also dropped all reviews except for Google reviews too.
@Daniel
From where?
Mike, I’m seeing a few missing descriptions, but most are still showing here in Canada; as are third party reviews… so far 😉
Hey Mike,
Looking logged out in FF I am not seeing the spaces for searches including ‘pizza san francisco’, ‘chinese restaurant san francisco’ or ‘hotel san francisco’. There are no descriptions, but also no spaces. Logged in, it’s the same thing. No spaces.
@Andy
On the candian searches I am doing, I don’t see descriptions.
@Miriam
As you can see from the example above I didn’t see the spaces on Safari either but I DIDN’T Search Plus Your World. I did have that option on Chrome.
So since Search Plus Your World wasn’t available on Safari they need less space. (Although some of the space looks like a coding error).
Are you seeing GSPYw on FF?
At the same time that the descriptions went missing this noon, my Adwords Express ads were also gone…tested in private browsing mode.
i am wondering the same! is this change going to stay? it completely ruins my listings! I list 1st in almost all my pages and this is completely unpleasant, unfriendly and UN-eye-catching way to reward the 1st position for succeeding this! At this time i would like to be number 2 (without a place page)
I agree with Harry – without descriptions I have to wonder whether a high organic rating outside the Google Places grouping will result in greater click through rates to a site. I really hope no descriptions in the Google Places groups is only temporary.
I guess they are making room for search plus. google + integration
if not i hope the description are coming back.
Could it be they are trying to drive more focus to reviews too…? all the white space does make them stand out more.
i’m not going to sweat it too much. i am sure in a week or two we’ll see another change.
never a dull day in local seo.
1 week without descriptions as of today – any more info on this topic? Is this still thought to be temporary or now the new norm. If this is going to continue I think a lot of people are going to pull their Places Pages. Is there a way for an owner to suspend a listing?
Just one more reason to emphasise about not putting all of your marketing eggs in one basket :/
[…] more widely. When Google strated manipulating local search results by reducing their footprint and removing the description several weeks ago, the PlusBox feature appeared with increasing frequency. I have received a number […]
[…] to discuss any concerns with the commission, knowing that there's always room for improvement." TripAdvisor has accused Google of anti-competitive and unfair behaviour Google is under growing thr…n">TripAdvisor has accused Google of anti-competitive and unfair […]
Comments for this post are closed.