NEW Google Place Search Changes the ENTIRE Local SEO & Organic SEO Game!

[Linda Buquet]

Welcome to the brand new and TEMPORARY home of the Google Places Forum.
Eventually this forum will move to our sister site at <a href="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/">Catalyst eMarketing</a>.​

WOW, big news!

<strong>The whole Google search landscape is changing over the next few days. Are you ready? </strong>

<a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/place-search-faster-easier-way-to-find.html">Google just announced</a> the test results I've been seeing off and on for a few months are ROLLING OUT LIVE RIGHT NOW!

<strong>This is a RADICAL departure from the current search results page layout and will have a big impact on Google Places local maps ranking, organic ranking, Adwords and directories. </strong>

No more 7 pack! SERPS Layout, local ranking, everything is totally different. In fact local ranking is now largely controlled by your organic ranking.

<a href="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/NewLayoutChiropractorSeattle2.jpg"><img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/NewLayoutChiropractorSeattleSM.jpg" alt="" title="NewLayoutChiropractorSeattle2" width="510" /></a>​

In a quick nutshell, the map is on the right and scrolls down the page with you. The Google Places (local map) listings are much bigger and are like a combined local and organic ranking. The big difference is that local listings that are driven by Place pages are MUCH more prominent and organic rankings are pushed way down the page.

<strong>Yesterday more and more people started seeing the new layout and then Google officially announced that they are rolling it out. </strong>

<strong><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/place-search-faster-easier-way-to-find.html">Place Search: a faster, easier way to find local information</a></strong>
Place Search is rolling out now and will be available globally in more than 40 languages in the next few days. During the roll-out process you can use this special link to preview the new results. Our goal is to help you feel like a local everywhere you go!

Oh and one more thing if that's not enough...

1 MERGED algo. Used to be if you knew how to optimize for Google Places you could get on top of the LOCAL search results. Now it's all changed and the organic and local algo have merged. So no one has figured out the new algo yet.

I also have a local SEO company so have madly been trying to digest every article I can find about all the changes. This one from Search Engine Land is one of the best summaries I've found so far.

<a href="http://searchengineland.com/new-place-search-shows-googles-commitment-to-local-53990">New Place Search Shows Google’s Commitment To Local</a>

And here's the post I wrote yesterday over at my local marketing blog.

<a href="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-maps-organic-search-layout.html">Google Radically Changing Google Places, Maps, Organic Search Layout</a>

More info when I have anything more concrete to share. Still digesting...

Posted by Linda Buquet <a href="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/">Google Places Optimization Specialist</a>​

 

[fastfish720]

Linda, take a look at what is coming next: Google Realtime Search

 

[djbaxter]

Actually, that's not next. That was previous.

If you follow the link you provided you'll see that the image has an August date on it.

As for local search, that is continuing to evolve as people try to spam it.

And the bottom line in all of this, I think, is that basic SEO has become even more important than ever for Google. When you have that much distraction at the top of the organic listings, your organic listing really better rank in the top 5 if you hoppe to be seen at all.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yep crazy changes. My head is still spinning. I wish they'd give us awhile to get used to and adapt between new 'innovations.'

 

[Joseph Ratliff]

Would these listings in any way be related to the "tags" you can purchase on a monthly basis for local listings?

(and perhaps related to why these particular listings outrank others?)

 

[Linda Buquet]

Well related yes, somewhat. Higher ranking no!

Tags are an option for Google Places listings. But they don't affect ranking, they just make your listing stand out. However if you pay for a tag and you're on page 3 where no one sees it, it doesn't do you much good. So you probably are just seeing them more on listings that rank on page one.

BTW tags are still buggy. I don't recommend them right now because too many people report problems after they add tags.

 

[jzhao1688]

Too many tags can be recognized as spamming keywords too many times on search engines. That's why I don't do any tags and I only put keywords into paragraphs so they don't look like spam to search engine bots.

 

[djbaxter]

This thread is not talking about meta tags - the tags in this discussion are tags for Google Places.