How do I get Google Places to pick up my reviews from other sites?
-
I have reviews on Yelp, Insiderpages.com, and Citysearch. All of my contact information matches up, but Google does not seem to be finding them and adding them to my Google Places page. Is there anything I need to do to make this happen?
-
Google will automatically pickup the reviews from other sites but you can increase the speed of sync by making sure your profile is an exact match on the review sites. It is highly recommended that you take over the ownership of your profile on each of the top local review sites and optimize your business information. We have tested this technique and it worked well.
Here are the details of the test.
Sample -
Business A - New Google Place account and exact matching Judysbook.com + Citysearch account (exact headline, address, and tel#).
Business B - New Google Place account and Judysbook.com + Citysearch account with a different headline but same phone number and address.
Business C - New Google place account and JJudysbook.com + Citysearch account account with different phone # but same address and headline.
Business D - New Google place account and Judysbook.com + Citysearch account account with different address but same headline and phone #.
Submit each Judysbook.com + Citysearch account landing page to Twitter and digg manually one time only after reviews have been added. (Spam free Twitter account with 2000+ followers and clean Digg account with 50+ followers and regular diggs)
Outcome
Google picked up the reviews from Judysbook.com for A and Citysearch account for B.
Note - Google only picked up 1 or 2 reviews for both A and B from the review site so there could be some special algorithm in place for selecting the reviews based on quality.
I will be writing a blog post on my blog on this study soon.
Hope this helps.
Sameer
-
The Google bots automatically crawl sites such as Yelp, Insiderpages, and Citysearch, so in time they will manage to reach your profile on those sites. Once they do reach the profile, they will usually automatically scan the reviews there, and add them to your Google Places account's reviews.
Basically it's all automatically done. You just have to sit back and wait. It can take up to 3 months from personal experience, and even potentially longer. If nothing else you could use the time to find a nice bar on Yelp, and go hang out there until the Google Bots decide to get their gears in motion.
Also, make sure that the information listed on your Yelp/Insider/Citysearch profile is pretty much the same as the information on your Google Places profile listing. Things like the business title/name and address should be the same, so that way Google can be sure that the profile it is looking at on Yelp is for the same company it has in its own Google Places databse.
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
-
Changing / editing street view picture of premiss without drop in Google places ranking
Ive finally got a site quite high in the relevant Google places listings, after a year or so of trying. What ive noticed is that the auto generated street view image of the business is showing a row of garages round the back of the building, rather than the building entrance. Is there a way i can update the auto generated street view images of the business without risking the google places ranking / need to submit a move of address. Has any one had any experience with doing this in the past ?
Image & Video Optimization | | Sam-P0 -
Merge google plus and google plus business
Hi guys While logged in to my Google account Ive noticed we have 2 Google plus pages. https://plus.google.com/103609762965753667153/posts https://plus.google.com/b/112981948934843525105/112981948934843525105/posts Both accessed through the same email login. One has different posts than the other!! Is there a way to merge both of these? AmI right in thinking one is a personal profile and the other is a business one? We have multiple authors for our blog and each has their own google plus page and correct authorship set up etc but having these 2 pages is more work to manage. Any ideas? ThanksRobert
Image & Video Optimization | | Trespass0 -
New site, SEO well considered, no traffic :/ What next?
Hi There! We've built whatphone.com.au with SEO at the top of the list but things are not going as expected. Yes, there's still a lot of work to do, but I was hoping to get some guidance on what to do next to make sure we keep the right focus. This is what we've done to date: Added lots of unique and relevant content, particularly to our blog (and will continue to do so on a weekly basis) Ensured internal linking is strong Optimised each product page around product name (and relevant internal links pointing to it) Ensured the code is clean (ok, we are not a 100% but in a good place) URL structure, metadata, page titles, file names and alt tags following best practice Named the company and registered our domain around one of main keywords we are currently targeting "what phone" What we're working on: Link building Site speed Social signals Rich media (videos, more images) Not a bad effort right? No love from an organic traffic perspective 😕 Ok, the site / domain is no older than 2 months old, it's a very competitive industry, and no inbound links yet, but come on! Questions: Are there any benefits of engaging external providers to help with link building? I'm talking about outsourcing from elancer or similar.. Or is this playing with fire? Have we missed something obvious here? Any help will be greatly appreciated! PS: we currently have some issues with our pricing tables, but will fixed as soon as possible..
Image & Video Optimization | | whatphone0 -
Finding Pages with Youtube Embedded Videos in Google SERP
I'm trying to figure out a process to find specific youtube embed videos using Google search. But a lot of sites are not being returned. For example, I know that the following video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MnylRaQC3w) is linked to and embedded on http://gizmodo.com/5898438/watch-how-fender-builds-its-iconic-stratocasters However, I can't figure out a set of search terms to find that in Google. Searching for (1MnylRaQC3w Gizmodo) doesn't return the right page in the results. I'd like to figure this out so I could see everywhere a certain youtube video has been embedded.
Image & Video Optimization | | nixforsix0 -
Google Places Verification
Sometimes you can verify and claim a Google Places listing via phone, other times they will only send a post card. ANy reason why? Is it lack of trust to verify via phone or old dulpicate listings? Post card is just so unreliable. ANy way to "force" a phone verification?
Image & Video Optimization | | Reportcard0 -
Can or should you use a residential address for Google places?
My first thought is no. But I am definitely looking for some loopholes. If there is any way to make this work, please share your thoughts.
Image & Video Optimization | | itrogers0 -
How far away does your Google Local Listing Show up - and how to improve.
How does google decide if a listing from one city shows up in another? When I do a search for a lawyer in my city my competition from another town shows up - but I don't show up when I search their town. Only 3 listings show up for both searches - so it's not necessarily a rank thing. Any ideas on improving the distance your listings show up for? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | musillawfirm0 -
Google’s algorithm on file size. Use IFrame or not?
With page size being a big factor in Google’s algorithm what’s the best way to implement a flash file without jeopardizing rankings? What’s your thoughts on embedding the video in an IFrame?
Image & Video Optimization | | SEO-Team0