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Google Places categories Q?

by Pestew
16 replies
Does anyone know how to get more than the standard 5 categories in Google Places? I have an off line biz and have been approached by a guy that claims to be able to get 10 categories (for more money of course). Funny thing is I was just working on my Places page when he called.
#categories #google #places
  • Profile picture of the author Pestew
    The guy that called he said they were vendors of Google and would have to work 16 hour per week to get it optimized and to maintain it (really?).

    Anyway, they priced it for 10 categories at 200.00 set up and 150.00 per mo. and that was just Optimized for Google, half that for 5 categories. He did not mention citations or reviews.

    I have seen other Google Places Pages with what seemed to be more than the 5, but maybe they were just keyword stuffing each category.
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    • Profile picture of the author mattlwil
      Smells fishy. Maybe he means keywords?
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      • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
        Pestew, if someone tells you they are vendors of Google, you can immediately close the phone and proceed working on your Place Page

        But if I have to be honest - yes, there is a way for your listing to get 10 categories, but it's impossible for ANYBODY to assure that, because it all depends on Google itself. Usually if Google spots two Places with very similar information (mostly the phone and the address, and even sometimes the Business name if the two listings are in the same town area), Google would automatically merge them. If that happens, no one can tell you what the consequences would be, but generally - yes, it is very possible that your listing could gain new categories after the merge. However, it is unnecessary, because generally for businesses you need up to 5 categories to describe thoroughly what your company is all about.

        Hope that was helpful
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        • Profile picture of the author mattlwil
          Interesting you would mention merging.

          I have two listings with same info and just the other day suspended one of them. It merged the impressions and actions. The reasoning behind suspending one of them is because I have spent a lot of time optimizing one and didn't want to loose any juice. You think I should leave it that way or optimize both? I've actually got 5 suspended listings with different addresses. The business has moved a lot.

          I actually have a lot of double sometimes triple citations on the yellow pages super pages type sites. Every time you change or add a phone number yellow pages blasts out a new listing even if you want it unpublished and citation sites pick it up. Kind of frustrating to keep up with it.

          Thanks
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          • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
            If the listings are under the same account and have similar information, it is very probable that one of them would get suspended. However, you cannot do anything for the suspended one but either keep it in your account, or delete it both from your account and from Google places. I would suggest you the second option, but it is only my personal opinion. And yes - it is a very usual event that when you change some piece of information in any of these sites, Google would automatically create a new listing, especially if you change the phone number.

            P.S. You cannot optimize a suspended listing
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            • Profile picture of the author mattlwil
              Well, one of the phone numbers I have has been around for forty years so it was understandable that i would find listings with varying info. I added another phone line at the first of the year at a different address, requested that the number be unlisted with the phone company. Did some poking around last month and found the listing on ypdotcom. It had been picked up by two other sources that I have seen and has not showed up on google yet.

              All those suspended listings I have were done by me long ago. I knew google places liked consistency in the business info (that's about all I knew) and that's why I did that.

              Here is what it says when I go to delete one: This listing may continue to display on Google Maps if provided by other sources.

              So you think I should delete them all and see if they pop back up?

              P.S. Sorry about the hijack. I'd PM this person if I could...
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        • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
          Since I deal with duplicates and merging almost every day, I wanted to add to, correct, clarify some points made here.

          Originally Posted by rbrShorty View Post

          The only way for a listing to get more categories is to get merged with another listing.
          There are actually 4 things that can happen that can create more than 5 categories, but the main 2 are regular merged listings as rbrShorty mentioned or category KW stuffing. Both are prohibited. If you have 2 listings for the same business whether merged or not, that's against Google's guidelines and can get your listings rejected or suspended. G just added the no category stuffing rule to the latest change in the guidelines. My guess is this is what these shysters are doing and it can eventually get you suspended.

          NOTE: There are also other new rules pertaining to categories and MANY main keywords you may want to use are no longer even allowed. So it's doubtful you have MORE than 5 that are allowed. But if you do there are ways to get ranked for them, but in requires additional and very specific ways of optimizing your web site, not your Place page. (See the new "IS not DOES rule" under categories in the Places guidelines.)

          Originally Posted by rbrShorty View Post

          However, you cannot do anything for the suspended one but either keep it in your account, or delete it both from your account and from Google places. I would suggest you the second option, but it is only my personal opinion.
          WARNING - BE VERY CAREFUL - There are 2 ways to delete. Delete from my account or delete from maps. IF THE 2 LISTINGS HAVE ALREADY STARTED TO MERGE (which you can tell if the stats are exactly the same) IF YOU DELETE THE DUPE FROM MAPS (rbrShorty's recommendation) IT WILL ALSO DELETE YOUR MAIN LISTING. You want to delete from your acct, NOT from maps.

          Warning # 2 - If you have ANY violations, bad categories, images or anything in the dupe you want to delete - 1st strip everything out of the listing except for name, address, phone and 1 cat. WAIT 2 - 4 WEEKS (til the next Google update). Then select >> delete >> remove from my account. (Otherwise some of the bad info from the dupe will still merge into the main account.)

          Originally Posted by rbrShorty View Post

          Pestew, if someone tells you they are vendors of Google, you can immediately close the phone and proceed working on your Place Page
          Yes indeed, if they say they work for Google or with Google or are calling on behalf of Google hang up! But 1st be sure they are NOT G. G is starting to make verification calls to be sure a business is real.

          Also if it sounds to good to be true RUN! This is too cheap, PLUS 10 cats is untrue if they are doing honest optimization.

          PLUS just because someone adds 5 or even 10 cats does not mean you are going to rank on page 1 for any of them. Now with the new merged algo it's more about your site SEO so if all they do is tweak your Place page and you are in a competitive market you likely won't rank well at all.
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          • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
            Thank you for the clarifications and editions, Linda. And sorry to the others I was probably not clear enough about the issues mentioned herebefore.

            P.S. I am very happy to be reading your posts here, Linda. I am a big fan of your blog and I recommend that everyone takes a look at it, if you haven't yet (totally no affiliation here).
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          • Profile picture of the author Pestew
            Originally Posted by Catalyst eMarketing View Post

            There are actually 4 things that can happen that can create more than 5 categories, but the main 2 are regular merged listings as rbrShorty mentioned or category KW stuffing. Both are prohibited. If you have 2 listings for the same business whether merged or not, that's against Google's guidelines and can get your listings rejected or suspended. G just added the no category stuffing rule to the latest change in the guidelines. My guess is this is what these shysters are doing and it can eventually get you suspended.
            You mentioned 4 ways to create more than 5 cats, and then explained 2 of them. I appreciate that, but may I ask what the other 2 ways are? I know you can buy additional cats at some of the citation sites, and then maybe that is what carries over to GP, is that also possible? I ask this because 2 out of the 5 competitors all of whom have over the standard 5 cats also have an unclaimed GP, so this tells me it is not always done by any black hat intention. And they all are ranking well in GP.
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            • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
              Sometime Google just adds cats too. They added Physician as my 1st category on my Place page which is all about Internet marketing. I haven't even tried to track it down to see where they scraped it. But I submitted the same Internet marketing related keywords and cats everywhere.

              Originally Posted by Pestew View Post

              You mentioned 4 ways to create more than 5 cats, and then explained 2 of them. I appreciate that, but may I ask what the other 2 ways are? I know you can buy additional cats at some of the citation sites, and then maybe that is what carries over to GP, is that also possible?
              The other 2 ways that I know of are other variations of merged listings. The situations I've experienced 1st hand were not ones where the biz owner was trying to game the system and in fact my clients had no idea they had extra cats or where they came from. In all cases it took a lot of detective work for me to figure it out and a long time to clean it all up. In all cases the extra cats coming from someone else's account had geo keyword violations in the cats, so that's why I had to get to the root of it and clean things up.

              I've never heard of buying extra cats and having them flow into Places via citations sources. Not to say it doesn't happen, I've just never seen it.

              Originally Posted by Pestew View Post

              I ask this because 2 out of the 5 competitors all of whom have over the standard 5 cats also have an unclaimed GP, so this tells me it is not always done by any black hat intention. And they all are ranking well in GP.
              They are likely ranking well due to the organic ranking of the web site. (If the listing are the new merged layout style then citations and other Places ranking factors don't carry as much weight.)

              Unclaimed listings can get extra cats via merged listings too. And listings that were once claimed can become unclaimed and still hold onto all the cats. I've seen it a few times.

              If you want to PM me the search terms you are using to see these results (if you want to keep your niche or location private) I can take a look and tell you what I see, here on the forum for others to learn from too, without giving any personal details away.
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  • Profile picture of the author Pestew
    Originally Posted by rbrShorty View Post

    Usually if Google spots two Places with very similar information (mostly the phone and the address, and even sometimes the Business name if the two listings are in the same town area), Google would automatically merge them. If that happens, no one can tell you what the consequences would be, but generally - yes, it is very possible that your listing could gain new categories after the merge.


    If I understand you right, and if you were to create two similar places in hopes of Google merging them, it sounds like a very risky and unreliable way to try to gain extra categories.

    Originally Posted by rbrShorty View Post

    However, it is unnecessary, because generally for businesses you need up to 5 categories to describe thoroughly what your company is all about.


    It depends on the business. Nowadays, some companies are spreading over a wider spectrum of services to capture more work or be more of a one stop source. Anyway, it would be to a great advantage to have additional categories because Google seems to lean very heavily on Categories in order to place that biz into the searched term.
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  • Profile picture of the author Pestew
    I did some digging, I have seen quite a surprising large number of my competitors have up to 9 categories in the place pages (3 to be exact, one guy has 8, one guy has 6). Get this; two of those guys are unclaimed…

    Seems to me that citation sites are the common denominator here.
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    • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
      Pestew, trust me or not, citations have nothing to do with the number of categories. The only way for a listing to get more categories is to get merged with another listing. Sometimes it is a mistaken merging (I have heard of listings being merged, because of the similar business names and being in the same city). It is risky to create a second listing of a same business - that is for sure, but sometimes Google creates its own listings and then (after some time) merges them with others. It's quite a wild wild west out there, and I totally do not recommend you try the services of this "Google vendor".

      P.S. To all that are going to read this thread - if ANYONE calls you and tells you they are working for Google, please, be reasonable and close the line.
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  • Profile picture of the author srtyker
    I have had listings that have picked up the categories from authoritative citations many times, so I strongly disagree that citations is not a factor in categories. The way it works is that if you have a selection of categories available within the citation sites, you should choose as many as you can. Example, for a restaurant, you would choose not only restaurant, but also italian restaurant, indian restaurant, mexican restaurant if they have these cuisines - I hope you get the idea. Just make sure you add categories other than the ones you have selected in the citations on your place page. Then go and add a few reviews to your citations and watch them get indexed, slowly, but eventually. Usually there are multiple category selections available for free on citation sites (dig through the options) and I have also come across authoritative citation sites that allow selection of additional categories after paying a certain fee, usually peanuts - some countries have these sites and some dont. Not preaching, however truth be told, I have found the google local citation finder software very effective in finding authoritative citation sites that google certainly attaches to its place pages.
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