Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Best Searches Now Default to +4 Star Listings in the Local Pack & Increased Granularity
Two interesting developments in the Local Pack today. Joy Hawkins, (via Dave DiGregorio) pointed out that “Best Keyword + City” searches now return 3-pack results with average ratings of 4+.
Sergey Alakov pointed out on Twitter that the rating drop down now display increased granularity with 1/2 point differences now selectable.
Why is this important? Google is highlighting businesses with better reviews more in the search results. This increases the ever growing financial incentive to cheat on reviews. In any rational world this would increase Google’s responsibility to remove fake reviews in a more rigorous and through way.
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Comments
10 Comments
Ugh, are you going to fix that lovely business name above Barbara or should I? lol
Totally missed it.
It’s so prevalent these days, we’ve become blind to it.
Not on everything, I don’t see this for vacation rentals.
When searching for instance for best vacation rentals manzanita. It lists a vacation home rental agency that has no reviews at all, even though there are others with +4 stars.
And when searching for best rentals manzanita it even shows a 3.7 stars vacation home rental agency, although there are plenty of others that have +4 stars.
Wondering why?
Like everything Google does, it is based on a algo or rather a series of algo. If there are not enough 5 star businesses within a certain radius, it is likely to revert to an alternative presentation
FYI – just sent this to Google but it’s broken right now. Try actually selecting 4.5 – it doesn’t work. The results still reflect 4.0+ and the dropdown at the top still shows 4.0 even when you selected 4.5.
I wonder if Google tests these things lol.
Does quantity matter as well as having 4/5+ stars? For example if there are 20 businesses with this many stars, will the ones with the most be displayed first??
Seems to be the case, but I can’t find a lot of queries that bring up the search yet.
Is Google getting it’s consumer reviews exclusively from Google reviews itself, or are they incorporating Open Table and others.
Thanks,
Joel
Google reviews themselves are just from Google. But Reviews from the web and hotel reviews are from third parties.
I guess it’s time to get to work on those reviews. Thanks for the post
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