Google Places Stops Borrowing Reviews

If you’ve noticed a drop in the number of reviews your business has on Google Places, you’re not alone. Just a few weeks ago, after complaints by review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor, Google has started to link to the original source of the reviews after mixing in the reviews of 3rd party sites with those that were original to Google Places.

In essence Google was pretending all those reviews were original to Google Places. Why did Google “borrow” content from other sites?

Let’s say we have a great idea for a website, but it’s completely dependent on user generated content. How do you launch such a site without it being completely useless at first? Smaller scale sites solve this problem by attempting to go “viral” in some way, whether that’s organic marketing through a YouTube video that gets a large amount of views or just spreading their new site throughout their personal network. Some sites initially use micro-payments to people, paying pennies for each action, such as creating an account, commenting on an article, etc. Some might even create fake accounts so the siteThis makes the site appear more legitimate to new users, just as a certain percentage of people are influenced by trust and safety seals when deciding whether or not to use their credit cards. But, what if you have the scale and technology of Google? Well, then you just find someone else’s content, scrape it and call it your own.

So, why change now? About a week before Google changed their policy, Yelp made a presentation to a room full of state attorneys general about regulatory issues in search. The title of the presentation was, “Google Places: A Threat to Innovation and Competition.” Basically, Yelp alleges that Google was simply stealing their business (reviews) and then giving those reviews preferential treatment in search results, without any attribution.

What does all this mean for business owners? Well, rightly or wrongly it means you probably want to start getting some reviews on Google Places if you haven’t already. Local search is only going to become more important. Reviews will continue to appear at the top of local results and it’s generally accepted that customer reviews are a factor in the ranking of local results as well. But, just like any portfolio, it’s probably a good idea to diversify. Encourage your satisfied customers to leave reviews on whatever sites they use. This will ensure you reach any customers interested in your products and services, as well as keeping the good folks at sites Yelp in business and pushing Google Places to keep improving.

Google Places Stops Borrowing Reviews by

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