Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Now Inserting Critic Reviews & Top 10 Lists into Mobile Local Search Results
Google announced the inclusion of expert opinions and top 10 list data into local search results. For now its appearing on restaurants but I assume that it can and will show more widely as Google figures out how to assign these sorts of results to other entities.
These results are currently on mobile browsers and the Google App. When they will be migrating to the desktop is not known.
It appears that if they are on more than one list, then the listing will receive a special designation in the mobile Local 3 Pack results.
On this search result Hutch’s shows the special designation in the search results but in the mobile local Finder, the top three restaurants show the designation.
It appears that the difference is that Hutches is on more than one list. When you drill in this is what is visible:
When you click on the original source list you are then taken to the website. That’s at least 3 clicks in for those of you that are counting.
Update: I am seeing this on the desktop but it is buried deep in the Local Finder:
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Comments
6 Comments
This is a very interesting inclusion by Google. It does may a lot of sense in terms of restaurants but overall will it really effect anything?
For example, if a restaurant has a hundred 4 or 5 ratings by normal Google users but one critic says its poor will it cause some to decide against booking a table?
Personally don’t think it will cause too much of a problem, but I also think its a dangerous to basically say one persons review is more important because they are labelled a critic.
Just have to look at recent movie reviews to see that critics can cause major problems even though the movies themselves are well made.
@Nathan
I do not think for Google it is a matter of either or. Both critic reviews AND crowd sourced reviews are mentioned in the Entity Ranking algo
Hi Mike – not a big fan of having extra clicks to get through another “curtain of opinion” when I just want to get to the business site for a booking. I’m not sure we need this.
Thanks
Bren
Interesting! What other industries can you think of that would make sense for this feature to apply to? Bars, hotels, shopping… anything else?
Seems like you’d definitely need to fall into the kind of category that gets regular attention from local-focused publications (so we probably won’t be seeing these for dentists and lawyers). But things like this always beg the question… how will people try to game it?
Is this the dawn of local critic spam? 😛
Lastly, any insights into how Thrillist and 10Best are getting selected? Doesn’t look like there’s any markup for it… just a name mention on obviously a well established domain/page.
It appears this change generated some charges and attacks by Trip Advisor and Yelp just the other day. http://searchengineland.com/yelp-tripadvisor-googles-mobile-best-lists-hide-content-255465
Among the review sites that now sit above either TA or Yelp are Zagat; a Google owned property. I suspect TA and Yelp will push their own agenda’s to argue that Google is hurting them. I don’t blame them. They, like all sites are all subject to whatever google decides to do. Google’s agenda has been anything but pristine over the years.
From my personal experience I find Yelp very functional on many levels. I use their site and I do read their reviews. I rarely load and use apps….but I finally loaded yelps app on my mobile and use it quite a bit. Now I get their info, functionality, and details, especially for restaurants. As I relayed to you about 2 years ago, Mike, Yelp generates a significant multiple of restaurant reviews compared to Google in major cities (a range of say 3-10 (in yelp markets) and for urban areas not targeted by yelp….about twice as many reviews as google.
Heck: I don’t blame TA and Yelp at all. Google shakes up its algo’s and tracks how this impacts traffic. I strongly believe their goal is to divert traffic to google products and sites such as the KP’s and divert traffic from websites. Its been going on for years.
Google take an another step forward to its services. This is a very interesting inclusion by Google. It is a very good idea inserting critic reviews into search results.
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