Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Places: Review Bug Or New Link to A Google Property?
Frequent contributor Plamen has pointed out a new “behavior” in how Google is handling the main search display of new Google reviews showing up on the Place page; adding a link to the location in the “around the web” review section. Whether this is a bug or one more way to insert another link to an additional Google property in the main search results is unclear.
Here is the Places listing: Custom Shoe Repair that I added the review to if you want to explore my sample more closely. But it seems to add the links to the search results in near real time so you should be able to add your own review to a Place page and see the results quickly.
Oddly the link heads off to Google Maps and generates loc:search showing the location and place. As more reviews get added the url is updated to include a new author flag ID but the content does not change.
What is your opinion? Bug or just one more attempt to drive users sideways to a different Google page?
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Comments
8 Comments
Very interesting…I wonder if Google is going to be aggregating the reviews on this new property? Mike, is it okay with you if I leave a review to see the result?
I am curious to see if this has anything to do with either Google offers or Google +
I haven’t seen this happen elsewhere, but I’ve seen some REALLY buggy things in Places lately. For example, have a client with two Places listing. Went to check the Analytics, and discovered that somehow Google deleted the email account from their system. Haven’t found where they moved the accounts to yet.
Also, saw where I left a review and within 10 minutes, saw my client jump from the C spot to the A spot
Thanks Mike for letting me know if you don’t mind me leaving another review on that listing to see the result
@Eric
They are just a great local shoe repair shop. Do as you see fit. I had considered a relationship to Plus and Checkins but eliminated that after a little searching
I added the review and thought that it might show all the reviews on the “new” loc page. But it doesn’t. Just shows that there are 2 reviews total, but only shows verbiage from 1st review. If you click on the link, you simply go back to the original Places listing.
What do you make of the discrepancy in the distance of the green arrow and the PIN?
@Eric
It often even shows reviews from Yahoo or other third parties.
The reason for the difference is the difference between Google’s interpretation of the address and the pin location of the business. If I recall correctly I may have moved the pin to be more accurate at some point.
On one of the Google Places listings I monitor when you click on the new Google link on the right and go to the maps listing it is bringing in a snippet of information from a site that seems very dodgy at best. The snippet looks more like a mash up of different business information on a page. Similar to what you would see on a scraper site.
Noticed this this morning here in Florida…was gone by this afternoon. My first thought was that it was another link to a Google property. Guess we’ll have to wait and see…
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