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
-
Google instantly suspends Google+ local listing of brand new company
I just tried to create a Google+ listing for a client. It's a brand new company. As soon as I submit the listing, I get an error message: "Google has suspended your page due to quality issues." There is no content on the listing, no website, etc. Just their NAP. All I can guess is their business address or phone number is on a blacklist due to some previous tenant/owner. Does Google keep a blacklist of addresses and/or phone numbers? Any other ideas?
Image & Video Optimization | | AdamThompson0 -
Google+ advice
I am in the process of finalizing G+ pages for our financial institution's 70 locations. So far, the only things I see in my control (set-up only) are the basics - address, phone number, website, description, categories, etc. I do have some great information for additional information (drive-through hours, products, services, etc.), but I see that there's not a place for those. So aside from ensuring accuracy, choosing the best categories provided by Google, uploading quality pics, writing an effective/optimized description, and making sure my pins are correct, any other tips for making these the best pages the best I can? The only thing in my scope is page set-up. Our social media coordinator will be mitigating reviews and posting content. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | SSFCU0 -
Google Places and Google+ for business
When I acquire a new client I have created them an internal Gmail that I use for Google Places and now Google+. This has always worked. My question is, can I take over a Google Places listing on my email and still do a Google+ for business page and the reviews show up? Or does it have to be all under the same email? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | ClickIt0 -
Google only posting some reviews?
A doctor of mine recently complained that his patient went on to his Google+ Local listing and submitted a review, but it never showed up. The patient can see it on his own page, but it's not viewable publicly. Any ideas or posts you've seen about this? Thanks! Tom
Image & Video Optimization | | TomBristol0 -
Google Local pulling incorrect business name
A client mistakenly put her business name in one of the directories with "In" after the name for" incorporated". She wants to remove the "In" because it just looks weird, but we cannot figure out how, its showing up in google local too now. She did update her infousa listing but that didn't help.
Image & Video Optimization | | handsun0 -
Video SEO: Should I add Video Transcriptions to You Tube Videos Even with Google CC?
So, You Tube allows plenty of room from descriptions. I think 5,000 characters. Google does a poor Closed Caption of our audio. Should I also be adding accurate transcriptions to the description field in YouTube to help my Video SEO. What are the pro's cons and is it worth doing?
Image & Video Optimization | | BlairKuhnen1 -
Google Places with locations inside of a mall
I got a great question from a franchise owner today regarding Google Places for his business. His businesses are all in malls. With Google Places there is an emphasis on using consistency and full contact details, as we well know. The issue is his locations are in a mall and don't have a physical address to receive mail or verify their address. Is there a way to leverage Google Places in this kind of situation, or do you just use the general mall address?
Image & Video Optimization | | SarahGoliger0 -
301 Redirect affects Google Places Listing?
Hi, A client of ours has a Google Places Listing but over the last few days we noticed that two duplicate listings have appeared with exactly the same information as the original listing. Only difference is the domain names. I did some investigation and my client says that a company cold called them recently and sold them two domain names www.bandbinbanbury.co.uk andwww.accommodationinbanbury.co.uk and it seems these two are redirecting to the main site which sits on www.hanwellhouse.com My question is can this cause that the redirected listing now appear instead of the original google places listing? Any help will be appreciated
Image & Video Optimization | | InTouchMarketing560
