{"id":10598,"date":"2011-07-22T10:38:40","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T14:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=10598"},"modified":"2011-07-22T13:52:53","modified_gmt":"2011-07-22T17:52:53","slug":"google-places-gains-new-ally-in-review-battle-with-yelp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/22\/google-places-gains-new-ally-in-review-battle-with-yelp\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Places Gains New Ally in Review Battle with Yelp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Google has been in a pitched tussle with Yelp for quite some time. Google introduced reviews to local in 2007 and the fun began. Yelp <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/14\/yelp-reviews-back-in-google-maps-as-their-com-growth-stops\/\">reviews in<\/a> Google, Yelp reviews out of Google,\u00a0Yelp&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2010\/07\/31\/yelp-google-stoppelman\/\">anger<\/a> at Google&#8217;s use of their content, Google contrition, a <a href=\"http:\/\/searchengineland.com\/google-to-buy-yelp-for-500-million-32174\">large offer <\/a>by Google and a <a href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2009\/12\/20\/yelp-walks-away-from-google-deal-and-half-a-billion-dollars\/\">failed<\/a> buyout, Yelp reviews out of Google and <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/15\/google-places-upgrades-review-display-yelp-back\/\">in<\/a> once again, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/221152\/yelp_bites_the_hand_that_feedsgrumbles_about_google_places.html\">more<\/a> Yelp complaints&#8230; Google couldn&#8217;t seem to win but in typical Google fashion they kept plugging away. They weren&#8217;t giving up in the review arena.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/demand-force.gif\" alt=\"\" \/>Finally with the <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/16\/google-hotpot-yelp-meets-netflix-in-a-local-recommendation-engine\/\">release<\/a> of Hotpot last year and Google&#8217;s subsequent \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/26\/the-growth-of-reviews-in-google-places-aka-hotpot\/\">success<\/a> in garnering ratings and reviews things started to change on the review front. Research was indicating that Google was making strides and soon Google<a href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2011\/03\/11\/marissa-mayer-40-of-google-maps-usage-is-mobile-and-there-are-150-million-mobile-users\/\"> stepped out and into<\/a> the &#8220;we have lots of reviews game&#8221;. Yelp of course rose to the bait and insisted on engaging in the <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/11\/my-review-corpus-is-bigger-than-your-review-corpus-and-why-it-matters\/\">my review corpus is bigger than yours<\/a> type posturing.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/21\/google-places-testing-new-layout\/\">changes<\/a> yesterday in <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/21\/google-places-search-no-longer-showing-3rd-party-review-counts\/\">3rd party review handling<\/a> will change this review competition once again and tilt the playing field a little further towards Google in their battle with Yelp. While I <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/22\/changes-in-google-places-and-reviews-what-does-it-mean\/\">don&#8217;t think<\/a> the change should affect SMBs&#8217; review management plans, <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/22\/changes-in-google-places-and-reviews-what-does-it-mean\/#comment-552132\">it will<\/a> do just that. Companies that <a href=\"http:\/\/marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com\/google-places-update-3rd-party-reviews-citations-removed.html\">saw<\/a> their display count drop from 250 to 5 on the front page of Google will shift their efforts to regain an advantage. They will shift their review solicitation plans to refocus their client&#8217;s attention on Google.<\/p>\n<p>Google has just gained an unwitting ally in their multi year battle with Yelp on the review front.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google has been in a pitched tussle with Yelp for quite some time. Google introduced reviews to local in 2007 and the fun began. Yelp reviews in Google, Yelp reviews out of Google,\u00a0Yelp&#8217;s anger at Google&#8217;s use of their content, Google contrition, a large offer by Google and a failed buyout, Yelp reviews out of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-maps-google-local","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10598"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10605,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598\/revisions\/10605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}