Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Google Hotspot Influence Rolling Across All of Google Local
We continue to learn about changes across all of Google local products as Hotspot is further integrated into the rating and review process. Lat Long Blog points out that Places will now include a new section highlighting recommendations from friends: I noted in Rating are the new Reviews that Google was now allowing rating in …
Google Places Odds and Ends
Google Places Help: Instructions Included for Multi-Language Listings Google has long noted that having the same listing in multiple languages was acceptable. If you were not extremely careful merging of the multi lingual listings might occur unless they had been bulk uploaded. Google has now updated the Places Help Pages to include instructions (if not warnings) as …
Google Places Quality Guidelines Comparison
The newest Places Quality guidelines include a number of significant changes. In this update Google has not just added new rules but has removed a few specific guidelines from the previous set. A significant one that was noted by Linda Buquet was the removal of the following phrase in regards to content used in the …
Google Places: Are Ratings the New Reviews?
If likes are the new links then ratings are the new reviews. At least as far as Google is concerned as they continue to integrate elements from Hotpot into Places. I noted the other day that Google was integrating HotSpot friend recommendations in personalized Map results. They are also now including a new rating level …
Google Places Now Requiring New “Places Profile” For Reviews
Several weeks ago, before, during and after the Hotspot rollout, newly created reviews from reviewers with non-public Google profiles were having their Places reviews filtered. I tested this by writing a number of reviews, over time and many places in a secondary account. All of the reviews were accepted, none were published. Google has now …
A Reason Not to Move to Canada?
Since starting blogging I have made a number of very good friends and often times get to meet these folks in person. The other benefit (?) is that I occasionally receive unsolicited gifts in the mail. Google sent me a very cool Nexus Phone and a coffee mug. Once I even got a box of 40 …
Google Hotpot Recommendations Now Surfacing on Places Page and Maps
Hotpot, Google’s new recommendation engine for local, while still in its infancy is already influencing results in Places and Maps. In Maps, when a searcher sees a listing that has a review from a Hotpot friend, Google will surface that friend’s snippet in the list view. As such, in this case, it is the most …
Google Places – Do 800#’s Put Your Listing in Places Purgatory?
The general consensus in the Local Search industry has been that using an 800# in a Places listing might be a cause for some loss of rank but was generally not considered a deal breaker. Has the new Google Places Rejection algo now found a place for burying businesses that use an 800 number? This poster, …
Google Places Updates Quality Guidelines
Google last rolled out the last major Places Quality Guidelines update almost exactly one year ago. There have been a number of often critical additions (here, here and here) during the past 12 months. Google has once again released a major update to the guidelines. Historically, these guidelines have preceded algo based penalties for non …
Google Places – You Are Not Rejected, Not Suspended – You are in Places Purgatory
When does the word active simply not mean active in Google Places? When you are in Google Places Purgatory. Wikipedia: “purgatory”, derived through Anglo and Old French from the Latin word purgatorium.[8] has come to refer also to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation,[1] and is used, in …
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