Understanding Google Places & Local Search

Google and Your Business Wrapup – May 15, 2012

Mike Blumenthal — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:29:48 +0000

Vanessa Schneider, the Community Manager for the Google Places Forum, has taken the initiative to record a video series summarizing key points that have arisen in the Google Places forums during the previous week.

(Note to Google management if you are reading this: GIVE THAT WOMAN A RAISE! She is the best thing to happen to Places since… well…since the introduction of Places.)

Key Takeaways:
-The “We currently do not support this location” bug that erroneously affected a number of listing has been squashed (see this post for details)
-Google rolled out a new Offers and Bulk Upload tools
-The Places Dashboard once again supports the use of a URL (in addition to direct upload) for showing photos
-The bug that caused some Places videos to not show has been fixed
-If you are using a suite number it should be in line 2 of the street address field

29Prime – Would you Buy a Used Car From These Guys Let Alone SEO?

Mike Blumenthal — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:00:58 +0000

This is a cautionary tale to 29Prime’s remaining 8000 clients. If this company abuses their own Google Places listing imagine what they might be doing in your name.

Let me be upfront with my bias.. 29Prime is not one of my favorite companies. And I have in the past commented on their abuse of Google Place’s reviews to hide the reality of who they really are. But reader Dave Middleton pointed out that in addition to abusing Google Places’s review policy they are also abusing the Google Places Guidelines as well by adding a tagline to their business name in their Places listing:

Their claim of having served 20,000 clients, while an abuse of Google’s guideline against tag lines in the business name, is an interesting one. Linda Buquet pointed out one of their recent PR releases where they claim to have a current client base of more than 8,000 small business owners. The article notes that they were founded in 2010 (although their website notes a start date of 2007 and the domain was claimed in 2008).

If we take their most recent word at face value (Tough I know but..) and assume (for the sake of simple calculation) a May 2010 founding we can get a sense of their churn. They have lost 6000 customers a year. It would appear that they have lost 1.5 clients for each one still claimed to be under contract.

Still curious I wanted to see who actually owned the building that they show on their website as their presumed location so I typed their address into Google Maps to look at the Streetview of their location.

OOOPS. Turns out they violated another Places guideline and claimed their listing at the local UPS Store. The address, 2233 West Balboa Blvd # 115, Newport Beach, is the same one used in their Whois record and their website. This was no accident.

Still not convinced about 29Prime’s ethical behaviors? The image of their HQ on their website appeared to have been photoshopped so I dropped it into Google image search to see what I found.

Surprise! They seemed to be “occupying” the Unisys offices at 9701 Jeronimo RD Irvine, Ca. They may in fact be at that location occupying some space but the building most definitely isn’t labeled as 29Prime and they are but a renter. Hmm, stranger and stranger.

To any client of 29Prime: If these folks can’t get their own marketing story straight, how can you expect that they will get yours straight? They are obviously violating Google Places guidelines, run the risk of being suspended, are gathering fake reviews and are photoshopping images on their website that have one intention, to imply that they are more successful than they really are. Their churn rate is at best disturbing. They are willing to “cut corners” (to say the least) on their own marketing, can you really trust them with yours? Or will your listing end up suspended like theirs is likely to be?

Just for the record here is the image from the website and an unretouched image of the same location reflecting the actual occupant. It appears that they didn’t even take the time to take an original photograph and just used the one from the Wikipedia article on Unisys. They did appear to have adjusted the colors.

How many corners can one company cut?

What Should You Tell A Client When Google Loses Their Reviews – A 4 Part Plan

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:00:06 +0000

Google continues having technical issues with losing reviews (here is my first report from August 2008 of them being lost – the issue goes back quite a ways.) particularly when the CID of a listing changes due to a merge. Also they seem to be tightening down what appears to be a relatively unsophisticated spam algo (first confirmed in November 2010) that is catching a number of good reviews with the bad.

Don Campbell, amongst many others over the past few days, asked me what to tell rightfully upset clients that lose reviews from their Google Places page.

Here is what do when I have a client that has lost reviews:

1) Educate the client: I refer people to this Google authored article, Having technical issues with the reviews on your listing? In it Google outlines most of the issues as to why reviews go missing. The issues range from spam abatement to Google simply losing them in certain situations. Google notes that in most situations there is often little to be done even by The Google themselves until the issues are fixed and appropriate tools are developed. (In fact it really make the most sense to educate your client BEFORE they lose reviews so that they know what to expect and when it does happen you are not the one that they take their frustration out on.)

2) Provide a dose of humor and reality: Since there is not much a client or SEO can do, I also I provide them with the 6,6,6 rule for lost reviews to guide them as to what to expect in terms of recovery of the reviews. It might provide some small comfort.

What is the 6,6,6 review rule? (any client imagined thoughts about the devil suggested by my guideline are actively encouraged)

If reviews don’t come back to the Google Places page in 6 days, they might return in 6 weeks

If they don’t return in 6 weeks they might return in 6 months

If they don’t return in 6 months they have descended to Dante’s 6th Ring of Hell

3) Encourage them to stick with the plan: Regardless of what Google is doing (or more likely not doing) in regards to reviews this week, the best tactic is to keep on truckin’… continue to get more reviews at both Google AND 3rd party sites. I know it is hard and discouraging when difficult to obtain reviews are lost but neither the client (nor we) can control what Google does. The client can, in the end, only control what they do. It is better to have some reviews rather than none. A steady stream of reviews at the review sites will guarantee that the business has a solid review base no matter what and no matter whether Google has lost em again.

4) Advise the business to take control of their own destiny: (Contributed by Jacob Puhl) With the realization that some percentage of reviews will likely continue to disappear, the client should take it upon themselves to make copies of the reviews they do recieve at Google. If the reviews do disappear repurpose those that disappeared as testimonials on the client web site. In the same vein, implement hReview/Schema.org formatted testimonials on your site to highlight these “lost” reviews so that there is the chance of getting the additional review stars in search. Be sure that the testimonial page has enough prominence that there is a chance that it will be used by Google as a review page.

Reviews are hard to come by and painful to lose but just because Google doesn’t have their act together doesn’t mean that your client shouldn’t either. The value of reviews in terms of increased credibility & conversions is too high for the SMB to just give up on the process when confronted with adversity.

No related posts.

Upcoming Getlisted Local University in Syracuse

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:15:40 +0000

Would love to see you at our next Getlisted Local University!

May 22 - Local University: Syracuse will take place on May 22, 2012 from 8am – 12pm OR 1pm – 5pm at Driver’s Village in Cicero. Your choice of identical 4 hours sessions. Besides the regular speakers (David Mihm, Mary Bowling, Will Scott and myself) the event also includes John Carcutt, the Director of SEO for Advance Digital and co-host of SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM, Lauren Hufnal, a Bing Evangelist at Microsoft and Joel Headley the manager of Google’s Consumer Operations for Places and . If you have questions for Google about Places, Places support and policies this is your chance to have your questions answered.

If you come be sure to introduce yourself to me.

Pricing for the Syracuse event is $129 and with the discount code of MB2012 you will get a $30 discount. To register now visit our sign up page or click the button to the right.

Minor Change to Review Presentation on the Places Page

Mike Blumenthal — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:00:06 +0000

Google has changed the date information attached to a review and switched from the actual date created to a rough estimate of when it was created. The actual date is still visible if you click through to the reviewer. The change seems to create a greater visual sense of whether reviews are coming in over time.

Now if they would just fix the problem of losing reviews. I find it amazing that Google is continuing to release new local products without fixing underlying issues like the problems they have keeping track of reviews and their lack of transparency in fighting review spam…

Google Places Rolls Out New Offers Program and Interface

Mike Blumenthal — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:46:38 +0000

Google Places is now rolling out a new Offers creation program in the Places Dashboard to accompany the new Google Maps for Android. The product is significantly more robust than the current product and offers a range of creation options. There is an overview and FAQ available the Offers introduction page.

It is now live in my Places Dashboard. Click this image to view a slide show of the creation options:

Features:

When you enter the Offers area of the Dashboard old offers are visible but not editable. It appears that older Offers created in the Dashboard will be maintained until their expiration date but can not be updated.

The Offer design interface is very slick and provides simple choices to create the coupon.

Only photos from Google existing library can be used. This is a limitation of your products fall out of the narrow range they have chosen.

You are allowed to limit the total quantity of offers available, the timeframe they are available and whether a user may re-use the coupon. Interestingly the offer can be limited to only certain days of the week.

The management interface shows how often the offer was saved by users and how often it was redeemed.

New offers are currently only appear on Google Maps for Android, Google Offers and Google Wallet apps. As far as I can tell they are not visible on the desktop and have no presence on the iPhone.

An offer can be easily edited after creation to change the expiration or distribution settings in the original offer.

An interesting note in the How it Works area of the Offers area notes that offer is only free during limited-time trial period. (bold mine)

The Google Offers Help files have been updated to reflect the new product.

Limits to the new product:

This product is significantly more robust than the current product. But it does not appear to be available for display in desktop search and the fact that there is no iPhone version limits its use. What Google’s plans are in either area are unclear at the moment.

Also unclear is whether it will remain free in some capacity and when it does move to a paid model how it will be priced. The FQ notes: Currently, you can create offers from within your Google Places account at no cost during this limited time trial period. You will be notified about pricing details before the trial period concludes.

Offers (aka Coupons) have a long and sorry history in the panoply of Google local products. They were introduced to great fanfare in 2008 and then left to whither with little support and less ability to display them. Over the past year Google has been cleaning up inappropriate Offers but they have never made them more visible. This is only a partial step in that direction.

Given their limited availability on the Android product it would appear that Google is moving them away from the desktop and primarily focusing on their use in the mobile environment. Obviously they would be more valuable if they could be crossed marketed from the main search results and available on all mobile platforms. Hopefully that is in the cards.

Given the recent noise about Facebook reintroducing/testing their Offer product, one has to wonder about Google’s timing of this release and whether they will emulate the idea of making the coupon more visible with payment.

The Future:

When used in a mobile environment and tied to the new patents that Google acquired for indoor location via Wifi one can easily envision a coupon system that could could offer a given coupon when in close proximity to a participating vendor AND close the loop on the sale (with or without the use of electronic payments). Obviously the potential for relevant delivery and knowledge about when the sale is closed opens up a range of revenue analytic possibilities for Google.

On a more short term note we are seeing the Places Dashboard slowly but surely getting a face lift to come under the new integrated Google UI. First the Adwords Express UI update and now Offers. It is clear that the Places Dashboard (and hopefully Places Analytics) are soon slated for updates as well.

Google Places Rolls Out Updated Bulk Upload Tool

Mike Blumenthal — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:50:29 +0000

Google Places has rolled out a new Google Places Bulk Upload Tool. From the Google SMB Blog:

We’ve made many improvements and now enable the following actions:

Edit one or more of your listings’ data at once
Search through your listings, filtering by specific information or for listings with errors
Upload new listings using a data file or by adding them individually within the interface
Tell us how we can improve this new interface by clicking the “Give Feedback” link

Here are two videos, the first is for already bulk upload verified users explaining differences from the current tool and the second is a tutorial for new users explaining the tool in detail:

When you log into the upload feature inside of the Dashboard there will be a 9 page tutorial about the new features however it is not yet working:

No related posts.

“We Currently Do Not Support This Location” Bug Should Be Fixed But The Message Will Persist for Some

Mike Blumenthal — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:00:38 +0000

The snafu with the Places index that caused an inordinate number of accounts to suffer the dreaded “We Currently Do Not Support This Location” report for a listing should be fixed by now. But some users may find that they have moved from purgatory into Dante’s circles of hell.

Vanessa noted in the forums that the engineers should have had the immediate problem repaired by today and the influx of new messages has nearly stopped.

The operative word here is nearly. To those still experiencing the problem Vanessa is referring posters to this FAQ where she details why a listing might still be getting the message. She notes the following:

You may be seeing this message on your listing for a couple reasons.

1) Have you just recently verified your listing? Note that it may take up to a week from the time you’ve verified that listing to appear on Google Maps, and during that time your Active listing will say “We currently do not support this location” on it. Please just sit tight.

2) Has your listing been verified and live for some time? Search for it on maps.google.com (“business name, city/phone”). Sometimes the links from your Places dashboard aren’t synced properly, so you should always search on Maps first to make sure it is indeed removed . Often it’s still live and there, you just need to look it up via maps.google.com.

3) If you’ve done a search on maps.google.com and still don’t see it, go to your Places dashboard (google.com/places) and “poke” the listing by clicking Edit > Submit. Give it a couple days, and then again, go to maps.google.com to see if you see it appear live.

4) If none of that helps, then your listing has been removed from Google Maps. If you believe your listing should not have been removed, get in touch with our support team:

Link to contact form

Select: I have verified > Yes > My listing no longer appears > Fill out the short form, hit Submit, and await an e-mail from a member of our support team (it may take a few days).

- Vanessa

Issues 1-3 are all temporary states from which your listing can and will easily recover. I would however direct your attention to point number 4. The implication of the message is that Google feels that your listing should be removed from the visible index for some sin real or imagined.

In the past I have referred to this state as purgatory. However purgatory assumes that you have or can redeem yourself and achieve a state of grace.

This penalty, occurring at a listing level rather than at the account level, might actually assume that purgatory is not appropriate punishment and the reality may be that you have entered the eighth circle of the inferno instead.

Google Places Quality Guideline Update

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:11:35 +0000

Nyagoslav Zhekov pointed out to me that Google has recently added the following to their Google Places Guidelines:

Marketing, promotions, or other contests

Any promotion, marketing, contests, or other giveaways should clearly link to the terms of the activity and provide clear guidelines and qualifications. All such promises, given or implied, should be adhered to.

This is an odd Guideline in a number of respects. At this point there is no obvious way to run contents or giveaways on Places and even if you figured out a way to do so (via Offers or Updates) it is not clear that you would be able to include a link. I have asked Google for clarification as to what exactly this new guideline applies to.

Thanks to All

Mike Blumenthal — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:47:57 +0000

I have not been very present of late. I had some health issues that have been resolved which kept me from posting. For the past nine days I have been speaking in the Northwest and while I have had time to eek out a few posts I haven’t been very present in the comment sections.

Thanks to all of you that kept the conversation going in my absence (Linda, Dave and many, many others). You are a great community!

Google Places Now Requesting Business Licenses?