Google Shoves Their Liaisons Off Maps

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• Two Bits Of Local Search News
• Landmark Local Categories List

Thanks for the shout-out, Miriam.

I want to be clear (as I was on Mike's blog in the comment that you excerpted) -- although I find Google's transparently false reason behind this decision extremely disappointing, I don't disagree with the decision itself.

Their assessment seems to be that organic results for web designers tend be less laden with spam--or what looks like spam in the eyes of a Google engineer even when it follows LBC guidelines--what's the harm in removing the 7-pack for these phrases? By-and-large the "local organic" results are still extremely relevant, at least here in Portland.

It certainly doesn't serve my own interest, for a number of reasons, to see Google drop the 7-pack for ANY phrase, but I am siding with Mountain View on this one. I think they SHOULD have done it with locksmiths and other spammy industries long ago, as I've mentioned to folks on the LBC team on several occasions.

I suspect that a little more honest (and responsive) communication with our community would go a long way towards the criticism of this move from you, Mike, and others.

Miriam, I suspect, as you have stated, that Google is trying to beta test this change to gauge reaction. I never noticed the change until I started to read about it in the blogs and even then it never made sense - I am in Australia and Web Designers and SEO firms are still listed in Maps. This selective change is why I think it is a beta test.

I agree with you - it makes no sense that Web Designers and SEO firms should not be listed in Maps the way other businesses are. Is it because Web Designers and SEO firms can be 'virtual' businesses that they are being targeted (ie many do not have a shop-front)? Or is it as David suggests, the Local Listing titles of these companies look too spammy. Either way, Google should update their guidelines before making sweeping changes.

We are all in this together. Without each other we would be back in the 80's - a place where searching for something on the net was akin to riding through the Wild West!

Adopt a reasonable policy and provide clear and sensible guidance, Google, and the good businesses will abide.

The folks at Google certainly are ensuring that remaining current with the web development industry is a full-time job and in effect are creating an increasing need for businesses to hire SEO companies who focus entirely on staying on top of the latest info in order to keep their credible client companies showing up in all of the results they need to be included in, in order to provide the services that the Internet searchers are seeking.

Creating a web culture that is dependent upon the SEO industry might not be what they are trying to do, but is in fact, exactly what the search engine companies are accomplishing with their continuous changes and methods.

Thank you for this detailed and informative article!

"Adopt a reasonable policy and provide clear and sensible guidance, Google, and the good businesses will abide"

Hear, hear, Gordon! .And yes, it doesn't make sense to exclude one set of businesses from Maps. In fact, it smacks of sleight of hand, with Google whisking away real businesses and ending with a false picture of the business scape of a given city. This is not good.

Thanks for letting me know you are still seeing these listings in OZ and thanks for taking the time to leave such a good comment!
Miriam

Greetings, Alicia!

You make a very good point regarding Google's policies creating a need for businesses to have SEOs on board, just to keep up with the changes that happen. Like you, I doubt this was Google's goal, but it is certainly what has happened. It is especially true with Local. A friend recently commented that they feel like Google's Local algo is where Google's organic algo was 5 years ago...full of oddities and replete with ongoing changes. Struck me as a good observation.

I'm glad you enjoyed this article. Thank you for taking the time to share your good thoughts on this!
Miriam

It is a shame Google decided to go that direction for web designers and SEOs but it may be again one of those temporary glitches that occur every now and then. It doesn't sound fair that so much effort to increase local rankings will just go away overnight. Competition for organic results will get even more fierce. I guess we need to wait a bit longer to see what people at Google are really up to.

I think I can see - a bit - what's behind Google's thinking. They may reckon that SEO websites are, in fact, global organisations without a real need for a bricks'n'mortar address. They don't just want business in San Francisco but in LA, NYC and London as well. Many of these 'companies' are just individuals working out of their garage/kitchen and don't want or need callers turning up at their doorstep. I know this is our case here in Toulouse, France, where we are listed as a 'travel agency' at an address in downtown Toulouse ... but our customers live in London, Dublin and, yes, San Francisco. We don't want local (French) people turning up at our offices as we don't cater for their needs. But we HAVE TO be in Google Maps as it is part of our footprint on the net.
Hope this makes sense

SPOT-ON, Miriam....been up on this topic over the past few weeks what with reading about same over at Mike's blog, and others too! Seems like yes, we SEO practitioners along with the web dev/design group all have targets on our backs.....and that's not a good feeling at all!

Sure hope G looks at this and decides to both come clean as WELL as offer up a rational fix for same too!

:-)

Jim

Greetings Osborn-
Yes, my bet is that this is temporary...a test of some kind. I think you're on the right track.

Greetings Simon-
You raise a good point, and one that people are asking. Did Google do this because many web services companies offer virtual services? However, even companies offering remote services can still have business addresses and Google's action has removed these legitimate businesses, with real addresses, whose listings are in total compliance with the LBC guidelines. It just doesn't make sense that they would do this to, say, web designers, but not to chimney sweeps, landscapers or other types of businesses. Hence, my ultimate conclusion that this is a temporary test of some kind on Google's part. Thanks for asking a good question!

Thanks, Jim!
No, it's not nice to be singled out in this way. I hope we see Google give attention to this promptly. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Miriam

It is obvious they are testing. But it isn't quite obvious what they are testing. As always, we know the results as soon as Google has interpreted their statistics, because of the adapted results.

Hi David!
We are so sorry your comment got lost and are so glad we found it again. Thank you for coming here to further clarify your take on this issue.

See, my problem with this is that I think the change has created an artificial picture of the businesses in a given city. Legitimate web design firms/SEOs definitely exist in your town and mine, and for Google to pull these because of the existence of spam just isn't logical, in my mind. Any industry is subject to being spammed, but if Google is going to respond to this by then making that industry vanish from Maps, they will soon be left with an empty index. I'm fascinated that you agree with their decision on this...you know how much I respect your opinion, and so far, you are the one person I've encountered who supports this decision, if not Google's clumsy explanation. Thank you for explaining your reasoning, David.

This seems to be a case of Google understanding the technology side of the business but completely missing the human side. Many local business owners are good at reading people that they meet and developing a level of trust based off this interaction. This trust is necessary for SEO professionals because of the lag time between services rendered (ie., payment) and results.

By Google's own documentation, listing a new business in their local business center can take 6 to 8 weeks (although many times it's quicker), I can't commit to a company that their business will be included before that time. During the 8 week window, I have invoiced and been paid for services rendered, while the company may not have seen the results.

Local businesses do not understand the "web geek" thing and are nervous about the unknown. The whole sales cycle and business interaction starts with a local business being comfortable dealing with another local business. The human side of the interaction.

Hopefully, Google will quickly realize that local business are more comfortable and prefer dealing with other local businesses.

Maybe google is firing a broadside at the industry for the many past transgressions.

Yes, I know, nobody here personally ever did anything to invade the SERPs, but they do have to keep changing their algorithms every few years.

Aside from the SEO specific removal, there's a masssive elephant in the room that I have been pondering. In every decent sized city in America are hundreds of independent contractors that have legitimate businesses and are BBB members in good standing, operate honestly, and are all in all fine corporate citizens. Some have small offices, some work from home. Insurance salesman are a classic example. Now imagine if all 2,456 of those businesses claimed their local listing. And that's just insurance. There are hundreds of professions that are legit, have standards and licenses, work from home or small rented offices, and who provide a real services. Home health care, tutors, speech language pathologists, piano teachers, even realtors. The reality is that under the current model, at some point every single Google map will be coated in push pins and useless. It's just a matter of when. I think the local box will go bye-bye from page one and be expanded via a single link to a new page devoted to all things locally search term specific. Then again, I never would have believed I'd see tweets above organics.

Google is smart, they know what they are doing. Watch. Google may just be doing all of this as a real-time test, where we are the virtual focus group, and they study reactions via blog comments and forum posts as part of their product dev process.

Could it be simply that Google wants those businesses to convert to paid ads, ala Adwords? How better to get them to move there?

Outside of that, Eric Ward's thoughts sound pretty good also.

According to the study, the most important tool for small businesses to succeed in 2010 is search engine marketing, while email marketing, public relations and social media cited as crucial for success.

23.8% of all small businesses reported that search engine marketing was the tool most needed for their business to succeed in 2010.

I just happened to do a search today, and they're back up on maps, at least here in Tampa anyway.