Google Crowsourcing Missing Places
-
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?
-
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!
-
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.
-
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!
-
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!
-
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.
-
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:
- Home
- Restaurant
- Bar
- Clothing store
- Homegoods store
- Electronics store
- Supermarket
- Shopping Mall
- Movie Theater
- Gas Station
- School
- Grocery Store
- Cafe
- Hospital
- Doctor
- Pharmacy
- Museum
- Night Club
- Bank
- ATM
- Gym
- Private Home
- House
- Residence
- 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.
-
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!
-
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.
-
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!
-
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.
-
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!
-
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
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
-
2 Google my business listings for one company
Hello all I work for a small company. we do carpentings and old wooden furniture repairs. With the same company, we've started a tiny house building business, which is completly different of what we usally do and this is a national business wj The question is, can a create a different google my business listing for this activity ? It has different brand on logo but same phone number and same physical address. From what i ve found in google help pages , i would say yes, but i d take opinions about this , tks for your precious answers from google : Departments within other business, universities, or institutions
Local Listings | | uservices
Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government institutions may have their own listings on Google.
Learn more
Publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page. The exact name of each department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments. Typically such departments have a separate customer entrance and should each have distinct categories. Their hours may sometimes differ from those of the main business.
• Acceptable (as distinct listings):
o "Walmart Vision Center"
o "Sears Auto Center"
o "Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology"
• Not acceptable (as distinct listings):
o The Apple products section of Best Buy
o The hot food bar inside Whole Foods Market
For each department, the category that is the most representative of that department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments.
• The main business "Wells Fargo" has the category "Bank" whereas the department "Wells Fargo Advisors" has the category "Financial Consultant"
• The main business "South Bay Toyota" has the category "Toyota Dealer" whereas the "South Bay Toyota Service & Parts" has the category "Auto Repair Shop" (plus the category "Auto Parts Store")
• The main business "GetGo" has the category "Convenience Store" (plus the category "Sandwich Shop") whereas the department "GetGo Fuel" has the category "Gas Station", and the department "WetGo" has the category "Car Wash"1 -
How to add details to Google Local Listings
Hello, A website I am working on made it to Google's Local Pack. However, it does not have the website, hours, or location info. What is the best way to add it? I added an image link for context. http://imgur.com/rT3lQ4K Thanks!!
Local Listings | | HectorCortes0 -
Google My Business for a Multi-Business Showroom
We are considering signing up for a multi-business showroom co-op concept in our area. Basically this space (1 address) has 10+ businesses that have their products represented at the location. There is one person working that passes along the leads to the individual companies when someone visits the showroom and shows interest in a product. I know at least 5 of the businesses are using this address for a Google My Business profile, and we would like to also. I am looking for some advice on best practices and strategy to ensure were not violating any of Google's policies. Here is a link to the showroom: http://www.brookfieldhomeandideacenter.com/
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
Google My Business URL Choice
Hi guys, we have a national chain hardware store hardware store as a client. We built them a new website, and now they want us to do local SEO to help them rank better. We are debating for GMB whether to promote our new website URL or use the location page on the national hardware site. Most similar stores seem to promote the location page on the national site, but the client just spent money on having us build them a new website. What gives our client the best chance of ranking better?
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
Our satellite office isn't showing up on Google maps. How can we add it?
We are trying to include maps to our locations on our "Contact" page, and in taking these maps from Google, we came upon the following issue: We have Google+ listings for several of our satellite offices, which are set up through Carr Workplaces. When we look on maps, we can only find the Carr Workplace listing, rather than the listing for our business at that location. Obviously, we don't want to display the map that way on our own page; we want the map to show our business name. I realize that Google only wants fully-staffed businesses to be displayed on maps, and so whether or not we belong there is up for debate within our company. That said, we'd like to know how to make the maps listing work regardless. Thanks!
Local Listings | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Google My Business- Will a large service area dilute local search results?
I am considering adding our actual service area to our Google My Business profile, but I don't want this to dilute our local search results. As it is, we come up in the top 3 or so when searched in our HQ's city and several nearby cities when you search for us in Google Maps (although when I look at the top 10 organic for Google for some reason when you search for these cities + our keywords Google doesn't show any local results). Our actual service area is fairly large, comprising the states of CA & Hawaii & parts of CO, AZ, and UT. I would be adding the service area by zip code rather than radius, as a radius wouldn't make any sense in this case (particularly considering the distance between HI and CA). Is it better to keep our relatively high ranking in local results? Will adding the service area not affect local results negatively? Also, do you know why Google isn't showing me local results when I look for our keywords + our nearby cities? When I look for these keywords in larger cities like LA or San Diego, Google always shows me local results.
Local Listings | | BohmKalish1230 -
Google Places - Should my category choice be manual keywords or selected from default list
Hi All, I have a carpet cleaner hire business and am new to google places. I have been doing my listing for it but can't seem to work out whether I should choose one of the default choices in the categories and leave it as that (in my case it would be "carpet cleaning services" or should I manually type some keywords as well as this ? So for instance, I choose the default - carpet cleaning services but also manually type in "carpet cleaner hire" , floor scrubber hire etc etc as other categories Any advice or if someone could point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. thanks Pete
Local Listings | | PeteC121 -
Google+ Business Listings: Hours Displayed Incorrectly
Hi, When I do a search for our brand + location name (basically making sure we at least appear for that) the hours displayed are incorrect except when I log into our account to edit the hours they are right. Ex: Google SERP displays hours 8am - 11pm but within business listing account hours entered are 8pm - 10pm. Has anyone come across this and why would it be? Is it a case of other citations showing the incorrect hours? Thanks for your help WMCA
Local Listings | | WMCA0