Google Crowsourcing Missing Places

[MiriamEllis]

You may already have seen this in the past week or so, but it's new to me! Check out this screenshot from the bottom of the Local Finder for a search for 'electricians houston':

http://screencast.com/t/NKW3KuxIuPo

I saw this first referenced by Issac Hammelburger at Phil Rozek's G+ Community and see this as yet another Googl-ish thing to do, crowdsourcing data. They are trying to make it easier to add GMB listings, undoubtedly for owners who have never heard of Google My Business, but I've not yet tried the feature out. If you click on the ADD A MISSING PLACE link, you'll be able to input core data about a business. There's also a link to claim the business present.

Has anyone here in our super Local SEO community tried to add a business via this new feature? Are you seeing it in a lot of local finders? What do you think of it?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kristen,

Great question! So sorry, but I have no personal experience to add here about being a Local Guide. These might interest you, though:

https://jakehennett.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/2016-01-20-local-guide-experiences/

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/_J0EEGiM9cg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whDs4MSumbg

And Mike Blumenthal, I believe, is a Local Guide. He mentions it in the comments of this blog post, but I don't recall ever seeing him blog about it: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/01/15/google-replacing-city-experts-with-local-guides-program/

There doesn't seem to be a ton out there about people's personal experiences being Google Local Guides. If anyone in our community is doing this, it would be neat to hear what you think of the program!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kristen,

Local Guides is this program offered by Google: https://www.google.com/local/guides/

I think that's fascinating that there was no call to action to claim the listing! Thank you for letting me know that.

[MiriamEllis]

Wow! That really was fast. Now, where do you go from here? Are you being directed to claim the listing in order to take control of it, add photos, etc?

So appreciate you following up as you test this out!

[MiriamEllis]

Oh, wow, Kristen! Two (or three) heads are better than one! I didn't realize that field was one you could type in. You are absolutely correct. Thank you so much for pointing this out, and it will be so interesting to see how long it takes for the listing you've created to appear. Really appreciate this discussion and the little clues being uncovered. Cool!

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Ira!

Believe it or not, I was going to go fetch that list and republish it here, but then saw you had done so. Thanks a ton! Looking at those categories related to home, private residence, etc. makes me wonder very much what Google has in mind here. Those are not categories in Google's category base so, why include the 5 different iterations of dwellings?

Perhaps they might be some guard against malicious spam? If adding a place has been opened broadly to the public via this feature, wiseacres might add their untidy friend Joe's house to it with a jokey business title of some kind (Joe's Pigsty). Choosing one of the 5 residential categories might immediately alert Google that these are not businesses and should not be accepted? Hmm, maybe.

Or, could it be that Google now wants us to start labeling our homes? That seems very strange to me, but then, why those 5 categories?

You've noticed something quite interesting here, Ira. Thanks for sharing the list.

[irapasternack]

Ah, wasn't even thinking about the fact that you need to provide an address either way, but it definitely seems they are only looking for physical places that people are likely to visit. There is a prominent link to claim the business, but of course that only matter is you are the actual business owner or representative. So as an agency, we have our normal options (which in our case luckily includes Google's  GYBO program).

In the case of my flooring contractor, he is still just a prospect, so I thought this might be a great first step. It is pretty rare that I find any established business that is in no way listed in Google Business, but here is the whole list of categories in that can take advantage of this new option:

1. Home
2. Restaurant
3. Bar
4. Clothing store
5. Homegoods store
6. Electronics store
7. Supermarket
8. Shopping Mall
9. Movie Theater
10. Gas Station
11. School
12. Grocery Store
13. Cafe
14. Hospital
15. Doctor
16. Pharmacy
17. Museum
18. Night Club
19. Bank
20. ATM
21. Gym
22. Private Home
23. House
24. Residence
25. Private Residence

So, 20 that are actually business categories, focused on food, healthcare, and retail, along with 5 different ways of identifying a living residence rather than business. It will be interesting to learn how effective this method of adding info to Google becomes, and whether they expand it to new categories.

[MiriamEllis]

Oh, yes, Ira ... even if you are listing an SAB, it has to have a physical address, but then hide it. Only about 20 categories? Wow - that is really a limited data set. That wouldn't even cover core brick-and-mortar enterprises. Hmm!

[irapasternack]

Just to clarify, they actually do have a physical address. So it wasn't that I was trying to add them as a SAB without a physical address, just that the categories are very limited. Other than the 10 or 20 listed in the dropdown, it appears you can't choose any other categories for now.

[MiriamEllis]

Oh, that's really interesting, Ira! Flooring Contractor is definitely a standard category in Google's category base. The fact that SABs seem to be excluded makes me think about how Google differentiates between what they think of as a 'place' instead of an SAB. SABs, for example, are excluded from the Google Places API, and the reason they gave for this is that SABs aren't 'places'. So, when Google's new feature is asking you to 'add a missing place', it could be that they mean this only in their own, literal way.

Unless they expand to include common SAB categories, looks like this feature may be a no-go for any non-brick-and-mortar enterprise.

Thanks for sharing your experience with this. I guess it's back to the GMB dashboard for your flooring client. Good luck!

[irapasternack]

Interesting...  just tried to add a flooring contractor, but there is no relevant category available. The list of categories seems to be very limited, at least at this point. Specifically, service area businesses don't seem to be included yet.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Andy & Kristen!

I would just love it, if you get a chance, if you could let us know what kind of turnaround time you see with this. Thanks so much for being willing to share the results of the experiment with the community. Very cool!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Not something I have tried Miriam, but I have a new client who would be a good one to try with this as they have just opened a shop that repairs iPhones, iPads etc., and at the moment, have no listings anywhere.

Seems like a useful feature that should get some use

-Andy