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The updated Google Places is driving me nuts!!

by Tiduslite8
23 replies
Okay gang, I'm turning to you guys for help because I am stumped.

We know that Google removed the citations part of the places pages, and that they also have (largely) removed reviews from other sites. One thing they also removed is the additional details portion of the page. heck, even the parts showing hours open and payments accepted is gone.

What really makes this a headache for me is that I recently got a client with a brand new business. I've done all of the normal things I would do for optimizing his Place page....things that have taken my clients to the "A" spot for many of their terms.

Sadly, all of this effort has done nothing.
  1. Renamed pics with keywords before uploading to place page
  2. Created vids and posted to youtube and dailymotion, with name, address, phone number and web address in description for citation value.
  3. In additional details (no longer showing), used keywords and linked them to business website and other citation sources.
  4. Made sure website is keyword optimized, and that there are keywords in the footer which are keyword anchor text pointing to citation sources.
Okay, I'm stuck. Anyone have any ideas on just what to do next?
#driving #google #nuts #places #updated
  • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
    Your question is quite broad. You will have to actually show the website and the Place page in order for us to say what else could be improved.

    Generally 1., 2. and 3. carry almost no value in the ranking optimization process. Geo-tagged videos and pictures on third-party websites (mainly Flickr, Panoramio, and to a bit lesser extent Yahoo and Citysearch) could be used as citations, but some time should pass until they get associated with the Place page.

    Anyway, generally here are a few things that should be done and you didn't mention:

    1. Citations, citations, citations

    2. Reviews, reviews, reviews

    3. Links, links, links (to the website of course, not to the Place page)

    4. Get the website merged with the listing (if it isn't yet)

    Greetings,
    Nyagoslav
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  • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
    When did they make the change?

    I havent kept up too much with Google Places but have a few clients that want me to set them up soon.

    I will be meeting up with RockStarBen on Friday in Vegas and I will talk to him about it since he created 2 products on the topic and he is a genius with GP.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tiduslite8
      Originally Posted by Dr Dan View Post

      When did they make the change?

      I havent kept up too much with Google Places but have a few clients that want me to set them up soon.

      I will be meeting up with RockStarBen on Friday in Vegas and I will talk to him about it since he created 2 products on the topic and he is a genius with GP.
      I actually picked up a copy of his for Google Places. It had a few ideas that I'd never used before, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try them.

      The changes have occurred within the last few weeks. All of my previous clients? They are still high ranked in the A spots (a few Bs) for their keywords. The problem is with the new client.

      What makes it sad is that some of the competition has never claimed their places page, let alone done any optimization work. Heck, some of them don't have websites (or, if they do, the websites aren't showing in the places info).
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      • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
        Originally Posted by Tiduslite8 View Post

        I actually picked up a copy of his for Google Places. It had a few ideas that I'd never used before, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try them.

        The changes have occurred within the last few weeks. All of my previous clients? They are still high ranked in the A spots (a few Bs) for their keywords. The problem is with the new client.

        What makes it sad is that some of the competition has never claimed their places page, let alone done any optimization work. Heck, some of them don't have websites (or, if they do, the websites aren't showing in the places info).
        RockStarBen and myself spent Friday to Monday in Vegas and had a chance to hang with other Offline Legends as well.

        Seems that they are not worried with any of the changes and only seems that the reviews showing up without having to click on them is the only issue?

        From what I understood, they said just keep doing what you are doing.
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        • Profile picture of the author SeanComm
          Hey Linda, Hope everything is okay, just noticed your site is down...
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  • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
    Newer businesses need time to get Google to "trust" them and therefore rank them higher.

    Mass submit to to the citation sites and let them take hold. Once they start populating, the G-Places ranking will improve.
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  • Profile picture of the author Robdot
    It seems like we can't keep up with google, every time google sees things are going good they like to kill it.
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  • Profile picture of the author alexei_aus
    Hi guys,
    Something weird is happening with Google Places now. It looks as though they are using onsite SEO and information within your place page + Images and Videos.

    The strange thing is that when I seach for some terms, listings that have not been filled out at all come up on the top.

    I have few google places that rank really well while others don't do as well even though I am doing the same thing.

    Can you outline how you would do it to get the best positions?
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    • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
      Originally Posted by alexei_aus View Post

      Hi guys,
      Something weird is happening with Google Places now. It looks as though they are using onsite SEO and information within your place page + Images and Videos.

      The strange thing is that when I seach for some terms, listings that have not been filled out at all come up on the top.

      I have few google places that rank really well while others don't do as well even though I am doing the same thing.

      Can you outline how you would do it to get the best positions?
      If your keywords are pulling the newer style blended result then it is using a different algo that is 90% based on organic SEO factors - not # of reviews and citations or anything you do on the Place page.

      That's why you can see so many top listings where the Place page isn't claimed and have 0 reviews/citations, etc. The site SEO is in control of the ranking order with the new algo. But the OLD packs are still around so for some keywords the old algo still rules. I've explained it all in detail on my blog with screenshots, etc a couple weeks ago in a series. Too much to repost here and no time.

      But in a nutshell now you can't just optimized the Place page, build reviews and citations you also need to optimize the site. Plain old on-site SEO carries lots of weight right now. But then too you need to make sure you have all the right local hooks so G ties the site to the Place page.
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      • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
        FYI if you are missing description or hours on the Place page that's not part of the update, it's a bug.

        The update did remove the "more about this place" section (citations) and the more details section. Which sucks and makes it harder to analyze potential new clients because you can't see the whole picture. However Google says they still are taking the more details you add into consideration even though they are not showing those details on the Place page.

        So now I have to ask clients to send me a screenshot of their dashboard in order to see if they have any violations because that's the only way to see the description and more details section.
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        Linda Buquet :: Google+ Local Specialist and Google Top Contributor
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      • Profile picture of the author rockfuse
        Originally Posted by Catalyst eMarketing View Post

        If your keywords are pulling the newer style blended result then it is using a different algo that is 90% based on organic SEO factors - not # of reviews and citations or anything you do on the Place page.

        That's why you can see so many top listings where the Place page isn't claimed and have 0 reviews/citations, etc. The site SEO is in control of the ranking order with the new algo. But the OLD packs are still around so for some keywords the old algo still rules. I've explained it all in detail on my blog with screenshots, etc a couple weeks ago in a series. Too much to repost here and no time.

        But in a nutshell now you can't just optimized the Place page, build reviews and citations you also need to optimize the site. Plain old on-site SEO carries lots of weight right now. But then too you need to make sure you have all the right local hooks so G ties the site to the Place page.

        I have seen a lot of sites without seo or citations outranking other listings for the top spot. A lot of why things are on top make absolutely no sense recently. Like a previous person has said listings without citations or reviews are getting A spots and they do not even have websites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zach Anderson
    I have just noticed from a few of my clients that Google is putting a lot more emphasis on traditional SEO versus the citations.

    I just took on a brand new client and the current person that is showing up number one has very few citations, limited pictures, and no videos. It is a pretty competitive dental market.

    What they do have is great On page and off page SEO along with several Google reviews.
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    • Profile picture of the author superrooster
      Yeah, I am just getting started in local seo and the constant updates are throwing me for a loop. But, it makes sense that they would move towards an algorithm that uses the website associated with the listing.

      I think it makes sense because a lot of businesses have still not claimed their own listings so it was probably easy to game those listings, and the other reason being that Google's focus is on being the center of the web providing the best content to those who use it. So, why wouldn't they use the content to evaluate the listing?

      With the constant changes the #1 thing you can do, IMO, is make sure that the actual website is optomised to be at the top of the organic results.
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    • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
      Originally Posted by zanderson View Post

      I have just noticed from a few of my clients that Google is putting a lot more emphasis on traditional SEO versus the citations.

      I just took on a brand new client and the current person that is showing up number one has very few citations, limited pictures, and no videos. It is a pretty competitive dental market.

      What they do have is great On page and off page SEO along with several Google reviews.
      Yes zanderson, the new blended algo is 90% organic SEO and reviews and citations don't count as much. But in Dental lots of KWs still pull up the old 7 pack style Places listings. When that happens it's the OLD Places algo which is weighted toward reviews and citations. And it flip flops too. So bottom line, you have to optimize for both algos.

      I have 3 long posts that totally dissect the new blended algo and prove how much of it is weighted toward organic SEO factors. Also offer a bunch of free tools so you can use to analyze new client markets for yourself. Those posts were about a month ago. Look for the one that's called something like a tale of 2 algos. Can't remember for sure and need to run, but you'll find them.
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  • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
    True, in some ways Google has gone to hell.
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    • Profile picture of the author ronr
      It's crazy how they have removed the details from showing. A potential customer not can't see hours of operation or other information that could help them turn into a customer.
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  • Profile picture of the author garyfromdurham
    Some businesses are taking longer than others to be listed.

    Be patient and keep plugging away. Google is screwy at the moment.

    You will probably find the next business you list will appear fairly quickly.

    Gary
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    • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
      I just blogged a long update about some important new developments.

      A Google employee posted on my Google+ stream a couple days ago to explain what's happening.

      In a nutshell the new GP update cycle is 6 - 10 week. So new listings can be sandboxed for that long and bugs, missing data or weird data you are hoping will clear out the next update could take that long.

      He also said the missing description problem is not a bug. If you edit or create a new listing they decided to hold the description back in the update cycle just like they do new listings.

      6 - 10 WEEKS! He also said they are working to shorten the cycle.

      A few of us have had descriptions come back just this afternoon, so either they just updated or thought better of it and removed that description delay feature.

      Tons more tips and bug updates in my last 3 blog posts. Gotta run.
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      Linda Buquet :: Google+ Local Specialist and Google Top Contributor
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  • Profile picture of the author Tiduslite8
    Okay, so it looks like the good news side is that I can upsell for a combined package of Google Places optimization + Website SEO
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    Guys,

    Listen to Linda she does know what she's talking about.

    BUT!

    I haven't noticed any ranking problems for any of my case studies and even some brand new places listings and sites for my clients that have zero reviews. I'm not doing anything black hat either.

    However, onsite SEO is a major factor these days so you better be looking at that.

    This can cause a problem for many firms if you can't get control of a clients site or get changes affected within a reasonable period of time. God that's a head ache! LOL
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    • Profile picture of the author Anthony seoserviceagents
      Agree with you Russ however some New Listings Disappear for few weeks till they get live in Search but not all so don't know what criteria they use ,existing Listings after doing some changes also disappear for few weeks as Linda Blogged about it i wonder how long this will take for Google to update the cycle

      Originally Posted by Rus Sells View Post

      Guys,

      Listen to Linda she does know what she's talking about.

      BUT!

      I haven't noticed any ranking problems for any of my case studies and even some brand new places listings and sites for my clients that have zero reviews. I'm not doing anything black hat either.

      However, onsite SEO is a major factor these days so you better be looking at that.

      This can cause a problem for many firms if you can't get control of a clients site or get changes affected within a reasonable period of time. God that's a head ache! LOL
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      • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
        Really? I haven't had any of my new listings disappear and then come back into the rankings. Weird.

        Originally Posted by Anthony seoserviceagents View Post

        Agree with you Russ however some New Listings Disappear for few weeks till they get live in Search but not all so don't know what criteria they use ,existing Listings after doing some changes also disappear for few weeks as Linda Blogged about it i wonder how long this will take for Google to update the cycle
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  • Profile picture of the author francischan35
    I agree. The current Google places is very confusing unlike Google maps before. If you ask for a verification PIN, usually they send you the PIN by calling the business number you have provided but now they will only send you post card which will take 3 weeks or more.
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