My (Nyagoslav Zhekov) presentation from SMX West 2012 on Solving Problems and Seeing Success in Google Places. It covers mostly the basics of the internal clustering system, as well as some tools that could help you deal with the most frequent problems on Google Places.
2. How a “Place” is Created
“Listing” vs. “Cluster”
“Each local business listing on Google is in fact a giant
'cluster’ of information that we get from a few different
places: Yellow Pages, for example, as well as other
third-party providers.”
(Source: Google Places Help articles)
Data Sources:
Local Business Center (Google Places for Business)
Yellow pages and feed data providers
Scraped content from other websites
User Generated Content Source: Joel Headley, Google Maps team, June 2009
3. Google Decisions: Merging Data vs. Creating a New
Cluster and Which Data to Display Publicly
Threshold for merging vs. creating a new cluster:
Low threshold => merging data for different businesses
High threshold => creating duplicates for the same business
The main determining factor - N.A.P.
Which data will be displayed:
Trustworthiness of the source
Recency of the data
Completeness of the data
Number of sources displaying the same data
(Source: Egon Pasztor & Daniel Egnor, “Generating Structured Information” patent, 2006)
4. Data Sources for Google Places
(In order of their importance)
1. Owner-verified business data via Google Places
2. Data via business directories:
a) Yelp*
b) Super Pages
c) City Search
d) Yellow Pages
e) Info Group
f) Yahoo Local
g) Insider Pages
h) Niche Industry websites
i) Others
(Source: David Mihm, Local Search Ranking Factors, 2011)
3. Approved UGC
4. Scraped data
Source: Interview with Eric Stein, Search Engine Land, October 2008 Source: Getlisted.org, 2009-2012
5. Preventing Problems
Check your N.A.P. consistency
Local Citation Finder (Whitespark)
Local Search Scorecard (Yext)
Getlisted.org (David Mihm, Inc.)
Local SEO Check-up (Bright Local)
Screenshot: Local Search Scorecard by Yext
Be careful which account you use when claiming/creating the listing
Check the email associated with this account frequently
Update your listing frequently
Follow the Google Places Quality Guidelines
6. When the Problem Occurs
When do problems occur?
Reporting a problem via the “Report a problem” GP frontend
tool
What is the “Report a problem”
Action time
Response rate
Efficiency
Reporting duplicates
No option to report mergers
7. When the Problem
Occurs (Cont.)
Editing the information via Map Maker
What is Google Map Maker
o Basics
o Availability
Editing a place
Deleting a duplicate
o What is a duplicate
o What is not a duplicate
Approval process
o Trust system
o Google Reviewers
8. When the Problem
Occurs (Cont.)
Using the troubleshooter
What is the troubleshooter
How the troubleshooter works
o What you can report
o What you cannot report
Why it is the best option
o Response rate
o Comparison with “Report a problem”
11. Google Places Help Forum
Posting on the Google Places Help Forum
(www.google.com/support/forum/p/Places)
Posting recommendations
Top Contributors
Google Employees
12. Useful Resources
1. Google Places help articles (http://support.google.com/places)
2. Google Map Maker help articles (http://support.google.com/mapmaker)
3. Understanding Google Places & Local Search Blog
(http://blumenthals.com/blog)
4. Google Lat-Long Blog (http://google-latlong.blogspot.com)
5. Local Search Ranking Factors, by David Mihm
(http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml)
6. Google Places Troubleshooting: Best Practice for Dealing with a Merged
Listing, by Mike Blumenthal
(http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/19/google-places-troubleshooting-
best-practice-for-dealing-with-a-merged-listing)
7. How to Deal with Duplicate Listings on Google Places, by Nyagoslav Zhekov
(http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/fix-duplicate-listings-google-
places.html)
8. Google's Local Search Patent Application, by Bill Slawski
(http://www.seobythesea.com/2006/09/googles-local-search-patent)