Quality Guidelines and reinclusion for Google Maps
Some technical difficulties with his blog doesn’t stop Mike to get up early today and post his very interesting findings on an update in the Google Maps Help Center. The Google Maps Help Center now contains some guidelines for your business inclusion and also, what to do when you got kicked out of Google Maps for spamming. This report from Google corresponds well with my previous post about Google tightening its submission policies.
You can find the guidelines by clicking on the following link:
Google Help Center Guidelines for Local Business Center Submissions
Honestly, I still find the guidelines a bit vague, taken into account previous statements;
“be as descriptive if you can for your business in your business title’ doesn’t really correspond with “Represent your business as it appears in real life”. Or is this just my point of view?
Can I use “Italian Ice cream and Cappuccino Bar Bella Napoli” or should it just say “Bella Napoli” because I registered with chamber of commerce with that name?
In my opinion it should add up to the user experience and thus allowing the first one.
In the Help Center, Google is now also referring to the Google Maps group for Business Owners where they can report abuse of the Quality Guidelines.
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Local SEO in Travel
Yesterday I was reading the Google Maps help groups for business owners, and a question was raised if it was Okay with Google to submit (self contained) accommodations to the Local Business Center.
we’re an accommodation
provider with over 150 self contained holiday listings. We’d like each
of these properties to appear on the local business center maps but I
want to be sure we aren’t spamming.
I think the question was a good one, just to be sure that you are not spamming Google Maps. Maps Guide Jen responded that you are free to go as long as the accommodations all have a physical address, andyou are the representative. Although they are not being validated by regular mail. They do go through the stages of bulk upload though, which means that the listings are not activated right away, but it might take up to several weeks.
Although this might have been obvious, for me this was always a shady grey area, because if you are a representative, you are not the actual business owner but a caretaker of multiple individual listings.
So this opens up opportunities for travel agencies, rental apartments, holiday housing providers, ferienwohnungen, bed & breakfasts, etc. who are representing these business locations and want to be visibile in the local search engines and thus increasing traffic.
If you upload your data to Google Maps using the LBC and want to include a URL to that listing, make sure you deeplink it to the property URL! It looks less like spam, and hey, it increases the conversion rate!
Google Maps Spam report option - tiny hooray for Google
This morning I read on Matt’s Blog that Google opened up a thread in the Google Maps Help Groups for Business Owners where we are now able to post our Google Maps spam issues. You can find it here
In the meanwhile, colleague in the Local Search business, Mike Blumenthal featured a little story what Google needs to do to carry the burden of Global Map Spam. Hopefully Google will take care of spam issues now quicker than ever (task not to difficult eh? )
Pain and hassles new Google Local Business Center
Google is changing their Local Business Center interface. For many of you, you will start thinking, YES! finally!
Actually I like the new interface and it definitely encourages people to add more data to their business listings. In the old tabbed model you were able to just finish after entering your business details and forget about all the tabs that were actually there. With the new system you get to see all the opportunities at a glance and business owners are more likely to be triggered to enter more of their business information.
I tried and tested the Local Business Center and so far I have come to the following :
- How do I correct my incorrect marker position after I’ve added the listing?
- Where is the bulk upload feature of images like requested here
- The maps overlay in the LBc doesn’t seem to be working in Safari (for windows, or is my system just buggin? )
- Why is this still not available in Europe ??? (including the free category selection!)
- While using this interface I wasn’t asked to re-enter my PIN for my listings, maybe this is because I use bulk-upload instead of manual verification?
Also while trying to delete a listing I was presented with the following screen, which I’m a bit puzzled about, because will Google Maps remove your listings and those from trusted sources if you want them to? What about
“To geographically organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Or is this the useful part?
Here’s the screenshot btw (click to enlarge) :
Also, I must note that I really like the ‘verified local submitter’ idea in a comment from AmhedF back at Mike’s blog. Especially for agencies or people monitoring large accounts, it’s unbearable and a real pain having to re-verify and re-enter those PIN’s for all of your listings. There should be a better and more efficient way to fight map spam.
Update: Seems like they are having some problems using bulk-uploads in the new interface. In the meanwhile, people in desperate need of getting their business listings online use the bulk upload feature can use the work around I mentioned at Mike’s post about this at his blog:
“change the &gl parameter and/or domain to a european one, you can keep the hl in your prefered language“
Google Maps spam appearing in Europe - not only a problem in US
Map spam is starting to become a problem in Europe as well. Most of us might know (almost infamous) Mike Blumenthal for his ongoing vendetta against map spam and battering Google in the process.
According to this article it says that Maps Guide Jen made the statement that businesses were only allowed to have only one listing per business location.
Well, while doing research I encountered the following business listings in Barcelona, while searching for hair treatments and narrowed it down to the results you see in the example (click image for full size) shown.
Although it is ‘only’ 7 business listings for the same address, the only thing they seem to have changed is the title and the description. This company seems to get away with offering multiple different listings for each and every service they might provide, ranking well in multiple keyword searches in the specific business. Let’s see how Google will solve this problem, and from what I can tell from Matt Cutt’s comments in this blogpost, they’d better watch out.
