Google Overhauls Place Pages, Emphasizes Reviews & Kills Citations

N.S., July 22nd, 2011 at 8:31 am ET:

Wow, this article is truly overwhelming, I used to work for a local search company, most of local businesses in the U.S are supported by Google maps and many of the tactics to promote these businesses are mentioned briefly in this article, i cant even imagine the impact it will have on the local SEO industry, i know for a fact that many business are obligated under a yearly contract with local directories such as Yelp , YP and more (its not cheap to have a paid campaign with these local directories)… part of the strategy of these businesses is just to gain more web pages, citations and reviews from these directories to their Google places listings…and now it will all be gone? this is shocking.
on top of everything, Google are planning to do more changes….this is very interesting!
Thank you Matt for this excellent post!

Jill Whalen, July 22nd, 2011 at 9:42 am ET:

As I just emailed back to the Localeze sales rep who keeps pestering me, it looks like their biz model has been nuked.

To which I say, nice job Google! I was kind of shocked that they were featuring their info so prominently.

Paul Mumford, July 22nd, 2011 at 9:43 am ET:

Citations have been removed from the Places page, but it doesn’t mean they’ve stopped using it internally for ranking purposes does it?

Shawn, July 22nd, 2011 at 10:47 am ET:

I’m with Paul on this one. If they begin to ignore 3rd party citations and reviews, their ability to verify the validity of business information as well as determine “prominence” becomes severely weakened. My guess is this change is primarily cosmetic and not algorithmic.

Matt Chantry, July 22nd, 2011 at 11:00 am ET:

We spotted this early yesterday afternoon and got a quick blog post out to our readers here: http://www.screenpilot.com/blog/2011/07/google-kills-95-of-your-hotel-reviews-what-does-it-mean-for-seo/

But SEL have done a great job of digging further into this news. I do disagree with Paul though. We looked at page rankings of some of our clients before the change and after and there is a slight difference to the algorithm. Nothing major mind, but certainly a change.

Michael Dorausch, July 22nd, 2011 at 11:06 am ET:
Premium member since 01/2009

I got my first notification of these changes when my phone started ringing mid yesterday. Several small business owners called, emailed, and tweeted throughout the day asking if I knew why their reviews had “disappeared”.

I have mixed feelings on the change but all we can do is adapt and continue moving forward. Certainly kills a significant amount of questionable business models, and that I see as a good thing.

Sam Beamond, July 22nd, 2011 at 11:25 am ET:

Great stuff here. I encourage my clients to use the reviews piece of their places page to build their reputation and help optimize the places page. Now they will find it easier to direct their customers. looking forward to what more changes are made to Google Places.

Matt Chantry, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:22 pm ET:

Also think that the influence of Google+ on googles decision for this isn’t being mentioned much. Their long running fight with TripAdvisor might be the main reason but Google+ was probably the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.

DK, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:33 pm ET:

Wow what a game changer! I believe they will continue to use the 3rd party reviews for ranking even though they dont feature them so prominently. Many sites in places have very few Google reviews.

Why is Google not allowing for a “Places Badge” html code that can be cut and pasted to your website in order to direct your customers directly to your Places page? Most customers who use the services of a company would never be able to find their places page in order to write them a review. Peculiar how Google does not make this easy.

Also, why is it that if you “boost” a places page, your sponsored link has an impactful 5 stars (if you have any 5 star ratings) over on the right side of that ppc ad ***** and then the places page link (this is really great and makes you stand out from the other ppc ads) but if you set up a legit PPC account and link the account to your places page via “Ad Extension” you get no such luck. Strange that you would be rewarded for using the basic product. Google reps have told me- “huh…that is interesting, not sure why it does that. Ill ask about that.”

Matt McGee, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:38 pm ET:
Premium member since 01/2009

Matt – curious to hear more about what you’re thinking there. How would Google+ have anything to do with local Place Page aesthetics?

Jill – also love to hear why you think Localeze’s biz model is nuked? They offer a valuable service that helps local businesses make sure their listings have consistent NAP data across local sites/directories. The need for consistent NAP data hasn’t changed. What were they trying to sell you — something different? (I may not be familiar with all of their product offerings.)

Nick Stamoulis, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:43 pm ET:
Premium member since 06/2009

Glad to hear that these changes took place. I am curious to see if people will leave many reviews and how this might be integrated with Google+.

Nadim Hossain, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:52 pm ET:

Google did the right thing by pulling the reviews that Yelp didn’t want borrowed. Customer reviews are highly relevant to consumers, and therefore highly valuable for SEO. For Google to take that content without permission to syndicate seems wrong (reviews that show up in Google Shopping are syndicated with retailers’ permission, for example). That said, for consumers’ benefit, I think such content *should* be syndicated openly as widely as possible. This ensures that users have access to helpful information at the point of decision-making.The underlying story, I believe, is that Google is evolving from Search to Social, and we’re seeing some growth pains in figuring out the rules. I write more about Google’s transformation here: http://blogs.powerreviews.?com/2011/06/01/google-1-la?unch-what-google%E2%80%99s?-social-reinvention-means-?for-facebook/.

Matt Chantry, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:55 pm ET:

Matt – Well its google accounts that are now making all the “relevant” reviews. Its just my belief that G want everyone on the web to run everything through google and the timing of this so soon after the launch of Google + makes me think it ties in. I wouldn’t be surprised to see +1's having a large say on review pages soon as well.

Matt Chantry, July 22nd, 2011 at 12:57 pm ET:

RobertKCole on TNoonz actually does a much better job of phrasing it all than me!

http://www.tnooz.com/2011/07/22/news/google-kills-web-reviews-for-hotels-on-maps-and-places/

Mary Bowling, July 22nd, 2011 at 1:33 pm ET:

IMO, the bully on the local playground appears to be flexing its muscles again, Matt!

Claudio Schapsis, July 22nd, 2011 at 2:48 pm ET:

The question is if they fixed the opening hours HUGE bug – pending for over a year…

Check the complains trail here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Places/thread?fid=5f673deb5906b7ff0004a785e1336441&hl=en

Brian, July 22nd, 2011 at 4:40 pm ET:

This is an interesting development. I’m sure one our clients at HomeStars aren’t going to be too happy about. In an niche vertical like ours, home services, our clients build reviews slowly, and our reviews are curated to ensure validity and transactions. With Google reviews, there is much more minimal validity testing and if companies get a fake review, it’s tough, tough tough to get it off. It’s also much easier on Google to post the fake positive reviews and game the system. With an algorithmic system, the solution is algorithmic. With curated content, it’s much tougher to game.
Either way, I don’t think google wins. They don’t display the broadest, most relevant content, which is, and should be their end game.

O.M., July 22nd, 2011 at 5:17 pm ET:

I really think this change will place an even greater importance on SEO and the quality of the links and ratings associated with each business listing. With greater influence placed in the hands of reviewers, it will be important to link businesses with high quality sites that will thus provide high quality reviewers.

Jim Jersild, July 22nd, 2011 at 10:51 pm ET:

The most confusing part about this change is that my description and all my addition details are now gone as well, not just the reviews. I am not sure how that helps the “user experience” since the user is left guessing what my business is about.

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How CDBaby Built 20,000 Citations With One E-Mail

CDBaby* is an online distributor of independent music. Founded by well-known entrepreneur Derek Sivers, the service became a huge hit with independent musicians because it offered the first easy way for artists to distribute and sell their music online.

Sivers, a professional musician, took CDBaby on a unique path that differentiates it from many other businesses – in that he didn’t ever want to run the company at all.

He started CDBaby in 1997 because his friends asked him to post their songs online as he had his own. One favor led to another, and eventually Sivers built his company to the point where it was sold for $22 million in 2008.

Sivers’ unique background and thought process pervaded into his business practices. At one point in the process, Sivers looked at his purchase confirmation e-mail and found the blasé, boring business-speak there didn’t match the core ideologies of his company.

So, Sivers sat down and pumped out an e-mail in twenty minutes (as he describes in his new book Anything You Want) that he found a bit more fun – and a lot more representative of what he believed CDBaby to be as a company:

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year”.  We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby

This e-mail, meant only to be a small bit of fun and more importantly – a disattachment from the norm, was so revered and talked about by CDBaby’s customers, that it attracted over 20,000 citations online – as verified by a simple search for ["private CD Baby Jet"] on Google.

Sivers spent 20 minutes writing this simple, text based e-mail – and he attracted 20,000+ citations, many of which included live links.

Sivers already had an established audience with CDBaby, but when exposure met remarkability, the links came in droves. The first thing to learn from CDBaby is the concept of static marketing. Static Marketing is an idea that we should set up “force multipliers” that make every single marketing effort more powerful based on their implementation, especially those that only take a one-time, sunk-cost effort to implement.

The most prominent examples of static marketing implementations are in the form of social share buttons. On this post, you’ll find many Twitter, Facebook and other share buttons which, when implemented as calls to action within blog posts, greatly increase the potential spread of this or any other post. The second they are implemented, they become “force multiplers” for all future content creation from the source.

Social share buttons are one easy example of static marketing, but the concept has many potential applications – such as the e-mail from CDBaby. Once written and implemented, this small piece of e-mail marketing acts as a force multiplier for every purchase made until the website functionality changes.

The remarkability of the e-mail inspired action – so many of their customers went to share the information with their friends online in various forms. And here I am, continuing the cycle of social spread by writing this post.

I suggest creating your own remarkable purchase confirmation e-mail. If you can’t get away with the kind of personality Derek offers in CDBaby’s confirmation, I suggest at least offering up Twitter and Facebook account “follow and like” calls to action – as well as a persuasive ”please link to me” request with HTML to cut-and-paste for ease of use. You won’t get tons of links right away, but the steady dribble of customers turned into fans and brand advocates will make for a lifetime of potential benefit.

For increased link volume using this process, I suggest using an application like Tynt. Tynt makes it so unsophisticated users, when cut and pasting your e-mail into a blog post, will automatically embed a link. Beyond this e-mail confirmation application, it’s also great for web publishers who find their content cut-and-pasted with frequency – especially by less sophisticated users.

Beyond the brilliant use of static marketing by Sivers and CDBaby, one other unique characteristic of the e-mail stands out as well – the format that promotes the linkability of the content. The Web – and world – is turning into a unique funnel of data about businesses.

It is an increasing reality that social citations count for search, but it is still a pretty unanimous thought that links are still the number one currency of the Web. Most of the time, it is much more beneficial (especially for us as SEO-fueled businesses) for a user to share through a do-follow hyperlink rather than a Tweet, share on Facebook, or word-of-mouth referral to a singular friend.

For businesses that rely heavily on search, it is still in their best interest to push users towards linking rather than those other channels. CDBaby does this beautifully with their e-mail; an e-mail whose brilliance as linkbait is informed by the following characteristics – other than just being “great content”, of course:

Privatized. This is not immediately discoverable content on CDBaby; it is behind an e-mail wall that one can’t point to through Facebook or Twitter. Since a person can’t simply tweet or share out the location of something remarkable that adds all the description they need, they are forced to create a blog post and share that way, or point to another blog post if they seek one out and trust that author as well.Length. Not short enough to be shared on Facebook or on Twitter – and not long enough to lose the readers attention, Sivers’ e-mail pushes the linkerati into a funnel that forces them to create a blog post or be forced to more awkward channels to share their experience. A simple “CDBaby has such a cool confirmation e-mail!” just won’t cut it.Perpetual discovery based incentives. Given the “private wall” of e-mail, the link effects are similar to someone saying “new blog post” on Twitter, which, according to Dan Zarella’s research, is one of the 20 words/phrases that garner the most retweets. Every new user that finds this content will believe themselves to be pioneering a new territory – and because of that, they’re more likely to share the information, partially because of that “discovery” incentive behind sharing the information.Text based. Because the content is primarily text, the barrier to linking is extremely low. If the behind-the-wall experience was a rich infographic or other flash-based experience, it could be more difficult for many users to replicate that experience or talk about it through any channel.Linkerati incentivized at high interest point. Right after purchase, the interest in your product and offering is at a high that can only be exceeded by future pleasure with actual use of your product – which, conversely, could also mean a drop in interest if it’s not up to expectations. Also, this peak of customer interest aligns with access to a computer. The linkerati’s ability to act is important – if your product is physical, they may not be near a computer when the peak moment of satisfaction is reached – when they open it and use it for the first time. Therefore, the customer satisfaction peak, hybridized with intent to link, is at that moment in time – so a confirmation e-mail is a brilliant way to take advantage of it.

These properties are mostly distinct within this unique channel, which reflects on the brilliance of the CDBaby e-mail. But they’re aren’t exclusive as linking properties – they apply across the board. But what also makes them difficult to implement is that matching “great content” which these same properties can often be extremely difficult (or worthwhile) to do.

That makes this hybridization, in this exact implementation, something that is as powerful of a linking tool as a business can possibly hope for. An e-mail newsletter has many of these same properties, but it isn’t as static – meaning that it requires frequent writing and iteration to incentivize a linker that isn’t as beneficial as a purchase confirmation e-mail.

It can still be valuable, though – Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, for example, utilized a privatized e-mail list in 2008 that incited frequent republishing of his e-mails. He didn’t use it for SEO purposes, but based on the reception and the remarkability of his content, you can see how that created a wave of links back to his websites.

How you use e-mails to build links is up to you, but the power it has  (as exemplified by the aforementioned CDBaby and Jason Calacanis examples) show that it can be an incredible tool for building links back to your business.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Link Week

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