Google are currently in the process of testing out an updated version of local search, with greater integration of Google Places into the search results. Google Places is essentially a local listing page where companies have the option to upload useful information like their address, logo and mission statement, along with user generated reviews and related listings. This did not come as a huge surprise, as Google have been quite evangelical about their efforts to improve local search. However, you do have to question if they’ve hit the nail on the head this time.
Below is the current view, where as you can see the local results map and Google Places pages appear above the normal search results.
However, in the new layout the map appears above the sponsored listings with the Google Place listing appearing in the main search results beneath the organic result.
Now we believe this is only a trial at the moment, as it only appears occasionally, and we can most likely expect a number of variations along this theme as time progresses. I personally very much doubt this would be the finished article as the map has a fixed position relative to the screen that blocks out the sponsored listings on the right when you scroll down (see below). However, our PPC team think it’s more likely to push up the cost of adverting in the purple listing box at the top of the page.
If it does become standard, then I would imagine the main SEO implication would be to ensure you have an up to date Google Places listing, if only to take advantage of the prominence your search result gains through the addition of a red bubble and company logo.
It will be very interesting to see if this sticks over the following weeks and months, and I for one will be keeping a close eye out for further enhancements.
Google’s enhanced snippets give more than we’d bargained for
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010As some of you might have noticed, back in May, Google released what they call “rich snippets” which essentially aims to “highlight structured data embedded in web pages” or, in other words, provide a more detailed meta description within their search results. These rich snippets aimed to provide things like product or service ratings and they released a set of mark-up formats to ensure webmasters could highlight the data they wanted to use.
This has since been extended to include local search information through the greater integration of HTML formats in web design like hCard to gain information about businesses services and indeed their physical address.
Whilst this is certainly a good step towards greater control of how your site is displayed in the serps, we’ve seen two rather interesting examples of rich snippets in action and it has to be said they haven’t yielded much of an improvement.
The first major change we noticed was when Google suddenly began using DMOZ listing data to provide title and meta descriptions on a couple of our client’s websites. Whilst this in itself is nothing new and was easily fixed with the right meta tags, it does seem strange that Google would decide to implement these now. As rich snippets go it’s a bit of a cop out.
The second example of Google going one step further occurred on our Motionlab web design site and was discovered when I was surprised to see we had some Google traffic for the phrase “Malawi Marketing agencies” whilst looking through the Analytics data.
A quick look at the results revealed that Google had taken a rather liberal editorial attitude to our sites snippet as seen here:
After the initial amusement had worn off, it became clear that Google was combining our introductory blurb with a blog article snippet about one of our client’s conservation work in Malawi.
Whilst we appreciate the number 2 spot, it’s not really deserved and just goes to highlight how Google still has some way to go in refining this aspect of its search results.
As some of you might have noticed, back in May, Google released what they call “rich snippets” which essentially aims to “highlight structured data embedded in web pages” or, in other words, provide a more detailed meta description within their search results. These rich snippets aimed to provide things like product or service ratings and they released a set of mark-up formats to ensure webmasters could highlight the data they wanted to use.
This has since been extended to include local search information through the greater integration of HTML formats in web design like hCard to gain information about businesses services and indeed their physical address.
Whilst this is certainly a good step towards greater control of how your site is displayed in the serps, we’ve seen two rather interesting examples of rich snippets in action and it has to be said they haven’t yielded much of an improvement.
The first major change we noticed was when Google suddenly began using DMOZ listing data to provide title and meta descriptions on a couple of our client’s websites. Whilst this was easily fixed with the right meta tags, as rich snippets go it would seem to be a bit of a cop out.
The second example of Google going one step further occurred on our Motionlab web design site and was discovered when I was surprised to see we had some Google traffic for the phrase “Malawi Marketing agencies” whilst looking through the Analytics data.
A quick look at the results revealed that Google had taken a rather liberal editorial attitude to our sites snippet.
After the initial amusement had worn off, it became clear that Google was combining our introductory blurb with a blog article snippet about one of our client’s conservation work in Malawi.
Whilst we appreciate the number 2 spot, it’s not really deserved and just goes to highlight how Google still has some way to go in refining this aspect of its search results.
Tags: Google, Motionlab, SEO, Web Design
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