Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Category Archive For "Google Places (Maps & Local)"
Google Places: Google Confirms New Review Removal Practices
Google Employee Stephan S has just posted this in the Places Forum post to report “missing” reviews confirming that Google has started to remove reviews (bold is mine): As mentioned in this forum previously, we’re currently experiencing an issue that is preventing us from showing some reviews on Place pages. We’re working to correct this …
Google Places: Selective Reviews Now Being Removed
Update: Google Confirms New Review Removal Practices Google appears to be actively removing some reviews from Places listings. Some of the recent problems of reviews being lost are clearly algo based and reports of lost reviews continue to pile up in the forums. But my poking around in Places indicates that there is more intentionality than bug …
Google 7-Pack Heatmaps & User Behavior Study
While Google has shifted the typical Places layout from the 7-Pack to the blended organo-local results, these 7-Pack heatmaps and research from ionadas local still hold a lot of value. This snippet is of particular interest: And our most surprising finding certainly still applies. The conventional wisdom has been that the map itself should be …
Google Places – Are Reviews Now Being Filtered?
Last week I wrote an article, Google Places – Reviewer Names No Longer Showing. Feature or Bug?, where I highlighted the fact that reviewer names were not showing on reviews on a business’s Places listing. I and a number of readers noticed that some names were showing and some were not. I received two reviews …
Google Places: Another Reason to Move to Canada; Duplicate Listing Removal
I can think of several reasons one might want to move to Canada: they have single payer health care that every citizen receives and they usually are not using unmanned drones to shoot people in Pakistan and Yemen. I have found a third reason: the duplicate removal procedure in Google Places. In the U.S., the …
Google Places – Reviewer Names No Longer Showing. Feature or Bug?
Last week the name of review posters disappeared in Canada. It appears that they have now stopped showing for reviews in the US now as well. Here is a review on Places today: . Here is the same review from October 20th of this year: For a serious student of reviews I find this loss …
Google Places Search: Hiding Address No Longer Buries Listing
Update: While the Hide Address feature does not impact Blended results it STILL impacts Maps and 7-Pack results from showing so use with caution. The new Google Places Search has its winners and losers. For one group though, it is turning out to be an incredible plus – those home based and service businesses that …
Google Places Search to IYPs – What is the Message? Go Microformats, Young Man!
There has been a lot of discussion* (David Mihm, Greg Sterling, Chris Silver Smith, Andrew Shotland) in the local search community about the meaning and impact of the new Places Search organo-local blending of results on IYPs, directories and Review sites. All interesting and all of value. Clearly there will be winners and loosers, clearly …
What are the implications of the new integrated Local Search results?
Update: It appears that Google is rolling out the new integrated local that I started writing about in July. They have been reported in Europe and are being reported as widely visible in the US. This was first written in August but it is essentially still valid today. ****** Since the beginning of July I …
Reviews: Lipstick on a Pig Leads to User Backlash
Reviews have become important. Having them helps with rank, the good reviews bury any negative comments and create higher averages. Good reviews and good rank lead to sales. I am a big believer in actively managing a review solicitation process. It is a winning combination if done correctly and respectfully of customer needs. The pressure …
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