Understanding Google Places

12 years ago

I have a feeling you are running into the hidden SEO Ninja trick of hiding keywords inside images and alt tags, which are generally invisible to the naked eye, but gobbled up by the search engines like candy. Try taking a look at Site A and view their source code for the keywords, and see if the keywords are in the images.

I'd suggest start there. I would also suggest checking out the analytics on both sites, to see what kind of traffic the sites are getting and from where. Relevancy is everything in the SEO world, and the more relevant ties you have, the better.

Those are some of my thoughts.....hope they help!

Brian

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sdentrepreneur

12 years ago

Could be the length of time the actual website has been on the web or who is updating the content most often?
Sounds like Restaurant B has much more going for it. I would have to actually see both sites side by side to give more info. Good luck !!!

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redcell1

12 years ago

Ohh, this is interesting. Could the reason for this be age? Restaurant A has had a owner verified google listing before Restaurant B ?

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bigbrian76 12 years ago

Originally Posted by redcell1

Ohh, this is interesting. Could the reason for this be age? Restaurant A has had a owner verified google listing before Restaurant B ?

The Google game is always an interesting one - they love keeping us all on our toes to try and figure out their game. Age of the site is reflected more in the PR - in which case, listing B wins - but you could be on to something about age with Restaurant A.

Does A use tags? Does B? There must be something A is using from Google that is putting them on top.

And no....I don't think distance is a factor....although that would be interesting to see if the searcher's location plays a role in who's displayed....can you share the keyword and restaurant's name, that we could look an compare?

Brian
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- Kirrybows 12 years ago
  
  I tried looking at the source code for Restaurant A's website, but didn't find anything too suspicious.
  
  The restaurants are Pascale Wine Bar & Restaurant AND Dinosaur Bar-B-Q respectively. They show up when you search "syracuse restaurant".
  
  Hope we can solve this mystery.
  
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  Kirrybows 12 years ago
  
  On second thought. Restaurant B shows up as #2 when I searched using another browser. Still Restaurant A holds the first spot.
  
  Also, as you can notice, Restaurant A has the keyword "restaurant" both in it's title as well as URL. Restaurant B does not. Could this measly distinction be the difference? I mean all the other factors still vary by a lot between the two.
  
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  sdentrepreneur 12 years ago
  
  Dinosaur is B on my search here in San Diego and Pascale is C. Pascale does have the word "restaurant" in its URL, that could be a slight edge....
  
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  Kirrybows 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by sdentrepreneur
  
  Dinosaur is B on my search here in San Diego and Pascale is C. Pascale does have the word "restaurant" in its URL, that could be a slight edge....
  
  Yes, I noticed that Dinasaur is now second place and Pascale is first.
  
  How is it that they are shifted down one spot for you? Who's in your first spot?
  
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redcell1

12 years ago

I am admit brian I have a case right now where the only difference is age. As far as I can tell but I have to do a more depth analysis for this client.

I would love to know the names of these restaurants just so I can review them. Would be an interesting case study for any google places "exert" to chime in and give us there opinion on it.

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redcell1

12 years ago

Okay I am in LA and here is what I get

A.) Gentile's Restaurant

B.) Dinosaur Bar-B-Que

C.) Pascale

I see that Dinosaur has more reviews from different sites
Pascale has less reviews from less sites.

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Kirrybows

12 years ago

Originally Posted by redcell1

I see that Dinosaur has more reviews from different sites
Pascale has less reviews from less sites.

Wow this is very strange. How come Gentile's comes up first for you? I'm in Syracuse and Gentile's is on #6 for me. I'm seeing:

Pascale
Dinasaur
Mission
B C
L'Adour
Gentiles

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redcell1

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Kirrybows

Wow this is very strange. How come Gentile's comes up first for you? I'm in Syracuse and Gentile's is on #6 for me. I'm seeing:

Pascale
Dinasaur
Mission
B C
L'Adour
Gentiles

no idea why

I changed my location to syracuse,NY and the same thing.

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Catalyst eMarketing 12 years ago

I'm in San Diego and I get:

Gentiles
Dinosaur
Pascale

I've done lots of research on the new algo and the reason for the ranking order I believe is the way the new merged algo works. It is not influenced as much by the factors the old Places algo took into account and is mainly weighted on organic SEO ranking.

In the OLD organic SEO rankings guess how they ranked for me???

Gentiles
Dinosaur
Pascale

My guess is if Kirrybows checked their old SEO ranking he would see it mirror the search order he's seeing now.

So it has less to do with the Place listing, reviews, citations, etc and more to do with the site and SEO. (But there are some local hooks that need to be in place and part of the Places algo influences to some degree.)
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- bigbrian76 12 years ago
  
  I too, have the same 1-2-3 placement others have seen.
  
  I do believe the fact "Restaurant" is in the title and URL could make a difference - relevance is the name of the game, and that is just a few more ways to be relevant.
  
  I have long thought that Google Places does not focus solely on place listing, but also on the SEO of the site. It's a real complex algorithm, but one that constantly changes. What's #1 today, is not #1 next week.
  
  Also....I think the search results will show different if you are actually LOCAL to the restaurants in question. Just a theory....what do others think?
  
  Brian
  
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lewiswharf

12 years ago

I thought Google places was location-based. You can not overcome geo placement if that is the case.

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Scott Kennedy

12 years ago

Originally Posted by lewiswharf

I thought Google places was location-based. You can not overcome geo placement if that is the case.

This. When I search for any term (like city + restaurant), the GP listings are ordered by proximity to my location. So the restaurant across the street is 1st, the one around the corner is 2nd etc. But maybe that's just for me?

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lewiswharf

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Scott Kennedy

This. When I search for any term (like city + restaurant), the GP listings are ordered by proximity to my location. So the restaurant across the street is 1st, the one around the corner is 2nd etc. But maybe that's just for me?

Perhaps just you and me.

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Amir Luis

12 years ago

Did you upload a sitemap to googles webmaster tools?

Is the site being crawled right?

May have something to do with it....

is the company contact information on the website Micro Formatted? Are the Hcards in place?

Jut curious.

I really thought google would slap you if you used keywords in your title. But I guess not in all cases. Crazy Google....

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Kirrybows

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Amir Luis

Did you upload a sitemap to googles webmaster tools?

Is the site being crawled right?

May have something to do with it....

is the company contact information on the website Micro Formatted? Are the Hcards in place?

Jut curious.

I really thought google would slap you if you used keywords in your title. But I guess not in all cases. Crazy Google....

I didn't design either of those websites, so you can judge their coding just by the source code I presume.

The Pascale place appears to be using vcards but I don't know about that.

Also, perhaps google is delivering results by geographic proximity to my location, but it doesn't know my location - just through my IP address the general area (as in the city). There are many restaurants that are closer to my location but it's obviously drawing from that clot of restaurants in the city center.

So do we have a verdict or the mystery is still unsolved?

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claymc

12 years ago

I'm running into the exact same thing, but what I personally am finding is there is a huge weight in the comments. Even though there are less comments on #1, do they contain the keyword in higher saturation than the #3 listing?

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mjbmedia

12 years ago

why do things that start pretty simple always get so complicated ? I mean Google Local Listing was simple, then they bring in all these rules and citations etc and as the competition hots up so does the technicality of it all

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Amir Luis

12 years ago

I just went through all the listings and NONE of the top box of Places listings are verified.

So there is really no telling.

My best guess is that the top one that outranks the others has more citations. I did not do a citation search... but you can use this to see what each listing has for citations and which are worthless and which are doing the most good.

Local Citation Finder | Whitespark SEO

Because it goes by phone number it isn't the most accurate. But it will give you an idea.

Also... Here I don't think the citations have anything to do with it.

I think they are ranked the way they are due to On Site and Off Site SEO of the actual website attached to the listing. I didn't look at the sites to see if the microformating was used. But... I my suspicions say it has to do with SEO. Or maybe even something to do with the domains age.

who knows... I am tired..... I am going to bed.... I can't wait to see what other people have to say about this though.

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Kirrybows

12 years ago

Well Amir, I guess there is no telling anymore. In my standards, Dinasaur has much more SEO than the Pascale place because as I previously mentioned the Dinasaur has 17,000 backlinks while the Pascale has something like 153. The Dinasaur's higher pagerank should also bear a lot of weight and at the same time indicate the domain's relative age.

EDIT: In fact I was right! I guess pagerank proportionately correlates with domain age. The Dinasaur's website, whose pagerank is 5 was created in 1998. The Pascale, whose pagerank is 3, was created in 2008. No big deal - just a 10 year difference.

Regarding citations, I think when you click on More Info in a Google Places listing, you can scroll all the way down where it lists the various websites that contain bits of the business' info such as the address of phone number. I believe that is a list of citations, and google lets you click on More to see all of them. In which case, as I've mentioned, the Dinasaur has 210 and the Pascale has 75.

So once again, the Dinasaur beats the Pascale at everything.

The only edge the Pascale might have is having the word "Restaurant" in the domain and title.

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Amir Luis

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Kirrybows

Well Amir, I guess there is no telling anymore. In my standards, Dinasaur has much more SEO than the Pascale place because as I previously mentioned the Dinasaur has 17,000 backlinks while the Pascale has something like 153. The Dinasaur's higher pagerank should also bear a lot of weight and at the same time indicate the domain's relative age.

EDIT: In fact I was right! I guess pagerank proportionately correlates with domain age. The Dinasaur's website, whose pagerank is 5 was created in 1998. The Pascale, whose pagerank is 3, was created in 2008. No big deal - just a 10 year difference.

Regarding citations, I think when you click on More Info in a Google Places listing, you can scroll all the way down where it lists the various websites that contain bits of the business' info such as the address of phone number. I believe that is a list of citations, and google lets you click on More to see all of them. In which case, as I've mentioned, the Dinasaur has 210 and the Pascale has 75.

So once again, the Dinasaur beats the Pascale at everything.

The only edge the Pascale might have is having the word "Restaurant" in the domain and title.

I meant all the business citations... not just the ones on the Listing.

I don't know what to tell you bro... a conundrum to say the least.

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BrightLocalSEO

12 years ago

Hi all

Sorry to muscle in your local search ranking but i thought you might find this helpful & useful.

We've just launched a Local Search Rank Checker tool. It's still in a closed Beta Trial but we're looking for experienced SEOs to come and test it and give us some feedback.

The Tool allows you to track rankings in both local search engines (e.g. Google Places) as well organic search engines. It also monitors if your business is mentioned in local directory listings on sites like Yelp, superpages etc...

You can track unlimited keywords & locations too.

The tool strips out any personalised search features (e.g. your search history, location etc) to give a vanilla set of results. This should solve lots of those problems about results differences and give you a baseline set if rankings to monitor over time.

At present you can't save rankings or set up a report but this feature will be live in early Feb and will enable you to schedule daily, weekly, monthly reports and customise them with your own logo. This reports will also enable you to compare current ranking with past rankings going back for as long as you use the tool.

We're looking for Beta testers now so if you're keen to try it out & get a sneak preview just email me at myles [at] brightlocal [dot] com and i'll send you your password & access details.

Thanks

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tonyscott

12 years ago

Signed up as a Beta tester - first impressions, this is a great tool for tracking both local and organic listings. Looking forward to seeing how it develops

Tony

Originally Posted by BrightLocalSEO

Hi all

Sorry to muscle in your local search ranking but i thought you might find this helpful & useful.

We've just launched a Local Search Rank Checker tool. It's still in a closed Beta Trial but we're looking for experienced SEOs to come and test it and give us some feedback.

The Tool allows you to track rankings in both local search engines (e.g. Google Places) as well organic search engines. It also monitors if your business is mentioned in local directory listings on sites like Yelp, superpages etc...

You can track unlimited keywords & locations too.

The tool strips out any personalised search features (e.g. your search history, location etc) to give a vanilla set of results. This should solve lots of those problems about results differences and give you a baseline set if rankings to monitor over time.

At present you can't save rankings or set up a report but this feature will be live in early Feb and will enable you to schedule daily, weekly, monthly reports and customise them with your own logo. This reports will also enable you to compare current ranking with past rankings going back for as long as you use the tool.

We're looking for Beta testers now so if you're keen to try it out & get a sneak preview just email me at myles [at] brightlocal [dot] com and i'll send you your password & access details.

Thanks

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localdominator

12 years ago

I have noticed that rankings will float a bit depending on what Google server it is getting routed through. I think this is an interesting case. It can be that there is more going on behind the scenes or that it is an area where Google hasn't updated and that is why there is the confusion.

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Kirrybows 12 years ago

A conundrum it is.

I was hoping that someone who specializes in Google Places ranking would chime in.

I don't think this is a unique example at all. In fact, if you look up any business category + city name you will find results that don't fully make sense.

This just tells me that there are certain things which we still don't know about the algorithm.
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adriver38

12 years ago

I changed my location to Syracuse and got:

A) Gentiles
B) Dinosaur BBQ
C) Pascales

Changed my location back to Jacksonville Fl and got the same exact thing.

As far as organic listings go, I find the actual Pascale website on the second page in the second spot, followed by L'Adour website in the third spot. I got up to page 5 of search results and still could not find Gentiles or Dinosaur website. To me that makes no sense as I thought on-page SEO was supposed to be a big factor now?

Im sure we can find discrepancies like this all over Google Places if we look. I agree that there are certain things which we still don't know about the algorithm. I think there multiple factors involved here and not just ONE clear cut answer as to why these restaurants are ranked the way they are.

If Google made it easy we would be out of a job though I guess so....
Yay for the challenge?

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Kirrybows 12 years ago

Ok, yes, Yay for challenge.

If it was so easy then everyone would be leapfrogging each other in rankings. It would be nice to have it figured out among us here though.

You gotta admit, google's doing a good job.
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Nathan Alexander

12 years ago

Are you guys using a plugin for firefox to get those numbers? Otherwise, are there any tools for the rest of us dummies to find out the number of backlinks?

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Kirrybows 12 years ago

I use the yahoo site explorer at Site Explorer - Yahoo! Site Explorer
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Amir Luis

12 years ago

Kirry beat me to it....

Yahoo site explorer is great and is what I use for checking backlinks to websites.... but also.. you can use...

Local Citation Finder | Whitespark SEO

for finding the competitions citations out there in the web world….

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TE2

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Amir Luis

Kirry beat me to it....

Yahoo site explorer is great and is what I use for checking backlinks to websites.... but also.. you can use...

Local Citation Finder | Whitespark SEO

for finding the competitions citations out there in the web world….

In the spirit of sharing...

I like and use this great little FireFox extension: SEOpen SEOpen: The SEO Firefox Extension

Current SEOpen features are all accessed through right-clicking an open area on a web page or by using the new toolbar; they include:

Yahoo Backlinks
Yahoo Domain-wide Backlinks
Pages in Yahoo Index
Google Backlinks
Google Cache
Pages in Google index
Google Translate to English
Google Related
PageRank Check
Bing Backlinks
Pages in Bing Index
Alexa Overview
Alexa Backlinks
"Mass Check" multiple sources at once
Check DMOZ Inclusion
Keyword Density
Page Load Speed & Size Check
Quarkbase Search
Compete Analytics
HTML Validator
Server Header Viewer
Wayback Machine
Check robots.txt
Whois Info

Regards,

John

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vndnbrgj

12 years ago

I agree completely with TE2. Although I do also use WhiteSpark.
Plus, Firefox has sooo many additional add ons that are helpful.

Originally Posted by TE2

In the spirit of sharing...

I like and use this great little FireFox extension: SEOpen SEOpen: The SEO Firefox Extension

Current SEOpen features are all accessed through right-clicking an open area on a web page or by using the new toolbar; they include:

Yahoo Backlinks
Yahoo Domain-wide Backlinks
Pages in Yahoo Index
Google Backlinks
Google Cache
Pages in Google index
Google Translate to English
Google Related
PageRank Check
Bing Backlinks
Pages in Bing Index
Alexa Overview
Alexa Backlinks
"Mass Check" multiple sources at once
Check DMOZ Inclusion
Keyword Density
Page Load Speed & Size Check
Quarkbase Search
Compete Analytics
HTML Validator
Server Header Viewer
Wayback Machine
Check robots.txt
Whois Info

Regards,

John

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TE2 12 years ago

Originally Posted by vndnbrgj

I agree completely with TE2. Although I do also use WhiteSpark.
Plus, Firefox has sooo many additional add ons that are helpful.

Just to be clear, I do use Whitespark. I also use Market Samurai and a few other tools.

There is no one singular tool that will everything. Some are useful for quick checks and others are used when deep research and reporting are needed.

The most important thing is to find what works for you.

John
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digitalrev2k

12 years ago

what sort of result you are getting ??
is it new blended results (organic + places) or old format 7 pack places results ?

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contentment1st

12 years ago

Guys,
I have an opinion, and it's just that; an opinion. This is based strictly on our results here locally. I don't know why, but every time we start getting reviews for clients from insiderpages.com, it has a profound impact on the placements. I don't know why reviews from this site carry more weight, but they do. Factor that into this discussion if you so choose. G

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bigbrian76

12 years ago

Originally Posted by contentment1st

Guys,
I have an opinion, and it's just that; an opinion. This is based strictly on our results here locally. I don't know why, but every time we start getting reviews for clients from insiderpages.com, it has a profound impact on the placements. I don't know why reviews from this site carry more weight, but they do. Factor that into this discussion if you so choose. G

That's a great tip - another tool to add to our arsenal to keep our clients ranked high!

Any other secret ninja tricks?

Cheers,
Brian

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srtyker

12 years ago

Hi, I totally agree with Brian's first response of the hidden alt tags for the images & videos which are uploaded to the listings, that has really helped me in high ranks but this looks a bit strange in your example as the first one has no images atall! does it have any videos? Also, the usage of the keyword in the reviews title & body matter too I guess.. Also,sometimes a few listings get an upper hand on others just because they luckily have the complete keyword &/or location in their actual Business name..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free Google Places Pack / 10 Box Finder Software - Free Download
A quick way to check whether a group of keywords returns places results on the first page

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1 reply

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bigbrian76

12 years ago

I completely agree with you Stryker - and from what I have learned, it does make it considerably more difficult to overcome a business that has the luck of a good keyword built in (hint to any future business owners - choose your business name wisely!). However, I would like to think that sometime, Google will wisen up to that and lower the scoring for business names, since that does give a slightly unfair advantage over competitors.

Oh if I could only land one of those thousands of jobs open at Google right now.....it would be a dream come true. =)

Brian

Originally Posted by srtyker

Hi, I totally agree with Brian's first response of the hidden alt tags for the images & videos which are uploaded to the listings, that has really helped me in high ranks but this looks a bit strange in your example as the first one has no images atall! does it have any videos? Also, the usage of the keyword in the reviews title & body matter too I guess.. Also,sometimes a few listings get an upper hand on others just because they luckily have the complete keyword &/or location in their actual Business name..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free Google Places Pack / 10 Box Finder Software - Free Download
A quick way to check whether a group of keywords returns places results on the first page

Thanks

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mattprince789

12 years ago

They had noticed that rankings will blow a bit depending on what Google server it is getting routed through. It can be that there is more going on backside the scenes or that it is an area where Google hasn't updated as well as that is why there is the discombobulation.

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Understanding Google Places

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