Following in the footsteps of several other locally-oriented sites, Google Places is now accepting user photos of local businesses. When viewing a Place Page (like the Wild Ginger restaurant in Seattle), you'll see a new "Upload a photo" link to the right of the Photos & Video content section. Google's announcement says the user-uploaded images will be visible on Google.com and Google Earth, in addition to Places/Maps. There's no indication about how many photos a user can upload (or if there's even a limit in place). In the beginning, Google Places only accepted photos uploaded by t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Place Pages

There's a Maps app on your iPhone, a Google Mobile app that includes access to Google Maps, and now there's a third option for Google-based local search and discovery: a dedicated Google Places app. It's just announced today and is already available in the iPhone's app store. The app seems to focus more on the discovery side of local than on search, which distinguishes it from the Apple-produced, default Maps app that's more about directions and navigation than about locating businesses. It also makes the Google Places app somewhat reminiscent of Yelp's iPhone app, and even Urbanspoon t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Place Pages | Top News

Google has famously undertaken a high-profile initiative to show users where they can buy products offline in local stores. It has also launched a very non-traditional (for Google) shopping site, Boutiques.com. There have been additional improvements in the Google Product Search destination site, including more product-browse capabilities. Then there are product listing ads, which expanded to all US advertisers last November. In other words, across the board in product search/discovery and product-related advertising, there's considerable activity going on at Google. You can now add to all [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Retail | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Partnerships | Google: Place Pages | Google: Product Search | Google: Web Search | Top News

The question of Google's right to refer traffic to its own sites is once again in the center of policy debate. The European Commission is looking at this issue as part of its larger anti-trust investigation against Google. It's also a question at the heart of the federal regulatory review of the ITA acquisition. Preferential treatment in search This weekend a story appeared in the Wall Street Journal (others are in the works) that features a number of web CEOs complaining or expressing concern about Google giving "preferential treatment" to its own properties: Google Inc. increasingly [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: Place Pages | Google: SEO | Top News

First there was the Google-Yelp dispute over reviews in Places (which was resolved). Now TripAdvisor appears to be preventing Google from showing its reviews on Place Pages. The first to report this yesterday was Tnooz. According to the article: Google is no longer able to stream in reviews from TripAdvisor to Places pages after the user review giant blocked it. TripAdvisor confirmed the move today in an email, stating that while it continues to evaluate recent changes to Google Places it believes the user does not benefit with the "experience of selecting the right hotel". "As a result [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Top News

Google’s recent rollout of Place Search for local business searches has resulted in a spike of interest in how to rank higher in the local-centric display of business listings. If you want to know how to rank higher in Google local search results, this article has what you need: a primer for how to rank in business searches in your city or town.

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Local Search

Damn that Google! Just when you figure out how to rank for a great keyword, Google decides that keyword has strong "local intent" and pops up a 7-pack of local business listings at the top of the SERP. And if you are not one of those seven businesses, you are indeed screwed. There are plenty of blogging SEOs out there who can tell you how to get ranked in the 7-pack, and you should definitely try, but while you're waiting for that strategy to kick in, how about we work on some relatively easier ways to get around the damn thing? And Now For Some Breaking News... Ok, selling electrician [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Local Search

The Google LatLong Blog and the Google Webmaster Center blog announced support for rich snippets on the Google Maps and local results. Google said the "use of Rich Snippets can help people find the web pages you’ve created that may reference a specific place or location." Google added using these structured HTML formats will help Google "properly classify your site, recognize and understand that its content is about a particular place, and make it discoverable to users on Place pages." This helps in two ways: (1) Use structured markup to help Google identify the places mentioned on [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Google: SEO | Google: Webmaster Central

One of the questions that came up after the formal launch of Facebook Places last night was: how will this affect Google Places (among others)? As an aside, I have to say it's really strange that these products have nearly the identical name. It's almost like Honda offering a car with a particular name and then Toyota coming out with a car with the same model name. Of course Google Places and Facebook Places are currently different animals from a consumer perspective. You don't "check in" to Google Places. But Google has other products that perform a similar function (Latitude, Buzz) that i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Foursquare | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Place Pages | Top News

In an on-stage interview during the Inman Real Estate Connect conference this week in San Francisco Google's Carter Maslan said that the company was not pushing into real estate specifically or going to build a direct national database of property listings and become a "universal MLS": "What we are doing in real estate is really (no different than) what we are doing in (other areas of) local search," Maslan said. If there's a property for sale, wherever its mentioned on the Web -- whether on "Rotten Neighborhoods" or Trulia.com -- Google wants to put those pages at users' fingerti [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Place Pages | Search Engines: Real Estate

One of the big, unanswered questions in the local search space is, Who's going to do the best job of marrying location with real-time context. Twitter is hardly the first to try, but it may have the best chance to succeed. On Monday, the company announced Twitter Places, a new feature that's being rolled out on both twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com to users in 65 countries over the next week. Twitter Places, in a nutshell, gives every location its own Twitter page. For now, that page -- which you reach by clicking "Tweets about this place" as seen in the image above -- is basically a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: Analysis | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Top News | Twitter

Google has announced that its Place Pages now come in a mobile version. Users of Android-powered mobile devices and iPhone/iPod Touch users should be able to see the new mobile place pages now. They're quite similar to what you're used to seeing in Google Maps, with business/place information, a collection of reviews, images, and so forth. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Place Pages

Google has announced a new product called Google Buzz, which represents the company's latest attempt to hitch its wagon to the popularity of social networking and, more specifically, the growth of social sharing and status updates. Many will call this a Twitter killer or a threat to Facebook. Certainly the company is targeting the audiences that Twitter and Facebook serve, but suggestions that Buzz will kill them are overblown. From Orkut to Lively to Google Friend Connect and beyond, Google has tried to succeed with social products that just haven't caught on. There's no guarantee Google B [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Facebook | Google: Buzz | Google: Gmail | Google: Mobile | Google: Place Pages | Top News | Twitter

Google is set to announce a new social tool at a 10:00 am event on its Mountain View campus. Due to the last-minute notice, we're not on the scene, but Google is providing a webcast via YouTube that we'll be using. Stay tuned for the liveblogging to start at 10 am or shortly thereafter.... Okay, so it's 10:05 and we're still waiting. #tapsfingers There we go -- Google has given a 2-3 minute warning. We'll be starting shortly. Or not. We're underway! Bradley Horowitz, VP of Product Mktg. is speaking first. "Hello on the webcast." Hi Brad. Says we'll be doing this for 45 minutes t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Buzz | Google: Place Pages

I'm scratching my head over this one: Google has added a new content block on place pages that, quite often, gives free advertising to a local business's competition. It's called "Nearby places you might like" and it appears below reviews on the place page; the content block will show up to ten recommended businesses -- but sometimes less. At the moment, the place page for Seattle's Fairmont Olympic Hotel shows only two nearby suggestions, but one of them is the bar at the W Hotel. Worse, consider the recommended businesses on this place page for Il Bistro, a restaurant in downtown Seat [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Top News

In order to increase the volume and coverage of reviews on its Place Pages, Google is now apparently looking beyond the range of traditional review sources to new, non-traditional sites (e.g., blogs, articles, etc.). Mike Blumethal has written a lengthy post on the subject. As Mike points out this could potentially complicate the emerging area of reputation management for local businesses. In the near term it's unlikely that Google will simply cast far and wide for any local business mention. Rather it will identify selected sites in particular markets, but those sites apparently need not b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages

Taking a page from Facebook or Twitter, Google is putting a bit of real-time functionality on local business Place Pages. Google is promoting the idea that small businesses can use their Place Pages to promote time-sensitive (real-time) events. Here's the Google LatLong blog discussion of how they envision its use: Holding a special event today? Want to post a coupon for 5-7pm tonight? Have a new product in stock? You can now get the word out by posting to your Place Page directly from your Local Business Center dashboard. Once you've logged in and are on your business' dashboard, post an upd [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Place Pages | Top News

Ratings and reviews have long been important to local search. Quantity used to be all that mattered - businesses with more reviews and ratings could rank higher than those without, even if the reviews were unfavorable. Google has joined Bing (and Yahoo to a lesser degree) with today's announcement that it's emphasizing the content and sentiment of reviews and ratings on its place pages. Here's a look at how Google spotlights review content on the Wild Ginger Asian Restaurant place page: Google is pulling reviews from a variety of sources, classifying them, and then providing a review [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Yahoo: Maps & Local

While the National Association of REALTORS® is planning to launch its own national property database sometime next year, Google seems to have just stolen the NAR's thunder. How? By rolling out individual "place pages" for every property that's listed in Google Maps. Like this one for a home in Seattle: The real estate listing place pages include property information, photos, map placement, Street View imagery and functionality, nearby public transit details, and even AdWords ads. Google has added links for "Directions" and "Search nearby," as well as a "Send" link that opens an outgoin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages | Search Engines: Real Estate | Top News

Google AdWords announced two updates including new alerts and place pages in performance reports, let me explain both in more detail. The new alerts are designed to help you stay on top of your campaigns. In addition to the billing alerts, they added alerts for new keyword and budget ideas in the Opportunities tab. Also, for those that use conversion tracking, you can now create custom alerts for changes in conversion volume, conversion rate, and cost per conversion. These two new alerts are not yet available for those who have My Client Center (MCC) accounts, but Google hopes to add the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdSense | Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Place Pages