On July 21st Google announced further “Tweaks and adjustments” to its Google Place pages.
They have simplified these pages for mobile devices, which makes sense when so many people use Google Places on their phones.
If you are a regular Google user, you will already have noticed the changes they made to the layout of their search pages on 28th June. In line with this new look the Place Pages have also been simplified to make them more “focused, elastic & effortless”.
The main change is on the emphasis on what people are saying about the place. They have moved the call to action: “Write a Review” to the top of each listing to make it more prominent. The “upload a photo” call to action is now sitting alongside the “Write a Review” which more clearly invites visitors to upload their own photos.
The request to “Sign in to rate” is also at the top of the review section thus really encouraging visitors to leave personalised recommendations. Anyone who signs in to leave a review will get personal recommendations in return.
Review snippets from other websites have now been removed so all the reviews displayed are from other Google users.
Google explained: “Based on careful thought about the future direction of Place pages, and feedback we’ve heard over the past few months, review snippets from other web sources have now been removed from Place pages.”
This could significantly change page ranking since previously reviews from sites such as Yelp, Trip Advisor, Yahoo or hotels.com helped to determine a page’s position. Links to other review sites are still available but only as links after the Google user reviews. It is not clear whether Google will still be using other reviews in its page rank algorithms but just not displaying them or ruling them out of the equation entirely.
These changes are more than likely a way of encouraging the use of Google+1. Google is hoping to build a community to rival the likes of Facebook and as such needs to encourage people to get involved.
Of course on the up-side, this can simplify the way that you try to build your online reputation since it makes it easy to direct customers to the one place to leave reviews.
If you have found this post useful, please click on the Google+1 button and leave us a vote. Thanks!
