Will Google Places put ranking weight on google reviews instead of 3rd party now?
-
WIth the visual update to Google Places over the past 2 days do you think that Google reviews will become a higher ranking factor as compared to 3rd party reviews. The research I have done shows that 3rd party reviews seem to correlate better with higher rankings..Any thoughts on what might be coming down the road?
-
Seems to me like the third party reviews are still making an impact on the rankings, it is just that google is no longer displaying them due to legal reasons.
-
I have to agree with you. We generally try to push customers to about 4 review sites Google Yelp City search And a specific vertical review site. I do think that eventually more weight will be given to google reviews simply to push business to use their service but I. Think a company would be foolish to put all eggs in the places review basket when they have such a problem with losing reviews and support.
-
I can't imagine Google would diminish the importance of third party reviews, which is one of the most meaningful signals of a business' local authority. Google reviews seem more susceptible to spam and bugs than many high quality review sites like Yelp.
Just because Google is no longer displaying certain items on Place pages, doesn't necessarily mean Google is changing the way those items are considered as as ranking factors.
-
Completely agree on the Citation point. They dont provide solid info on the places page so it makes sense that they have been pulled like mymaps were. I am just wondering about thoughts on reviews from 3rd party sites vs. reviews on Google. The approach has been to diversify your reviews to mutlple sites for rankings and also for "keeping eggs out of one basket". Wondering if many are going to switch strategy based on latest info.
-
"My personal opinion is that citations will not diminish, at least in the short term, in importance for Google’s algorithm. Particularly here in Brazil it’s amazing how reliant they are on sources beyond claimed Places. They’ve just gone 100% of the way to obfuscating what those sources are." - David Mihm
Personally, i have seen that citations are still quite powerful, especially if you can get quality citations from authority sites, not just all those fluff directories, those are just useless filler.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Business with Google + Business Page not showing with map
Hi I set up a Google + business Page for a client and we claimed their address (it shows in the Google Maps page fine. The page has been created for a while now but when you search for this business it does not show the map to the right? Any thoughts? BTW we have two locations and both have separate pages - thought this could be the issue but then when I added the business name + the location still not showing.
Image & Video Optimization | | AllieMc0 -
Sat in a York Based Office but I get a Google Lincoln local listing :-(
Buongiorno from 27 degrees C Wetherby UK 🙂 Imagine this scenario... I'm sat in a York Based HQ law office and Google term Langleys and the Local listing is for Lincoln is rendered 😞 The lincoln office is the smaller sister site 75 miles south of where I'm sitting as illustrated here appears (this is wrong) -
Image & Video Optimization | | Nightwing
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/langleys-local-listing-jinxcopy_zps26e3492a.jpg I then do the same thing in a wetherby based office and get the York based local listing appears. So my question is please" what is influencing which local listing is rendered?" Confused,
David0 -
How to keep rankings in Google Maps?
Hi, I know how to get in top 3 listings for Google maps, i ranked my client #1 for
Image & Video Optimization | | Davidmez
pretty competitive keyword that gets about 2000 local searches a month. My client was there for about 3 months or so, but now she doesn't even rank in top 10, But shes number one after maps listings. So my question is how do you keep that rankings once you ranked #1 for maps? All my pages are highly optimized
My Google places page 100% competed and highly optimized
I use twitter every week to build citations What im i missing? Thanks0 -
Ranking 3 times in SERP for non Branded Keyword
Anyone else seeing this? It just changed as of a few hours ago because it wasn't showing up this morning. One of our competitors is now ranking 2 times in the 3 pack and once in the regular SERP for a non branded keyword. "service/product + city." They have different: Names phone numbers - 1 local, 1 -888 addresses it looks like they don't have a rel/301 set up on the home page and they have a www site and non www site set up as 2 different accounts. One of the results is a Google Plus page and one is a Google Places/local page.
Image & Video Optimization | | BenGMKT0 -
Google Place Result taking over Organic Search Result
Hey there, One of our client contacted as stating that their Google ranking dropped. It was originally listed No.2 on the organic search result, but now it shows up only as Google Place instead, and the ranking is lower than before. Apparently it happens in Japan quite often nowadays, does it happen in your country too? Especially on Google.com? Is it becoming a trend?
Image & Video Optimization | | YukiTokuda0 -
Google Images in Normal Search
If you search for the term, "Crappie". Listed 4th is a row of images. These kinds of images always seem to grab my attention above the actual search results-- or at least they do for a moment. These images seem to be in order of google images rankings. I may try to take a swing at ranking for these images. Is there anything else I should know before I start? I can't seem to find any guidance on the topic. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | terran0 -
* Google Places - "More About This Place" Section
How often does Google update the "more about this place" section on a Google Places page? I have updated the company NAP on all the directories, added company information to multiple sites (using Google Discussions as a starting point), added backlinks, etc. Still, the "more about this place" section remains the same (over 2 months without updates). That section still cites our old website which is petmedicalcenter.vetsuite.com, even though our new website http://www.petmedicalcenter.com has been live for 3 months. Would it be better to wait for these updates or delete the page and completely start over? Thanks for your help!! Brant
Image & Video Optimization | | PMC-3120870 -
Multi-site listings in Google Local/Place pages
I've had problems with a client that is a local medical center with multiple sites/addresses. We've created a Place Page for each location and linked it to the location page on the client's website that matches the address on the Place page. But that means we're not linking to the medical center's home page -- and Google Places doesn't like that. I know this because after we'd owner-verified each Place Page, Google went in and just changed the website link that was a deep link to a location page and replaced it with a link to the home page. But now there's not an address match. How should we handle this? Related question: Does it make sense to claim a separate listing in Yelp and other local directories for each of the separate locations since they each have a unique address? Will Yelp & other local directories allow for links to non-home pages on the client's website?
Image & Video Optimization | | DenisL0