Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Places: More UGC
Two weeks ago there were numerous reports of new pop-ups on the Places page to ascertain from visitors the accuracy of a business location, the website associated with the listing, and the quality of included photos. Shortly there after it became obvious that Google was starting to once again actively allowing users to edit every Places attribute of claimed & unclaimed listings via community edit feature.
Over the weekend I spotted additional pop ups soliciting user input as to hours and the url of websites that are unknown.
After retreating from UGC somewhat in 2010, Google seems to have once again moved very actively and aggressively to permit and encourage user inputs as to the veracity of records.
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Comments
3 Comments
I think some of these changes are going to open up an even bigger can of worms than previous ones. ‘Know the website for this place?’ Why yes, it’s competitors-site.com Yikes! It will be fun to see what sort of sh#t storm this creates.
My biggest question is, when is Google going to take a vacation on the fast and furious changes and allow some time to see how things shake out?
Most specifically I’ve been seeing the automated questions appearing when there is a mistake or missing info.
Seems appropriate as an automated step. I wonder if google acts on this? I wonder if the automated questions are a test?
In the cases where I responded….needless to say no action.
Ah…the oftentimes great big black google hole. Who knows what goes on there.
@Keith
The devil as it were, is in the implementation & use of the data not the solicitation of it. One can only hope that it is done judiciously.
@Earl
In both the above cases, it was a situation that Google didn’t have the information or wasn’t sure about it. How many responses it takes for them to integrate the information is unclear.
They did say that this was a test so perhaps they are measuring quality achieved and whether or not to implement the new content. As you noted, who knows.
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