Recent changes with Google Places have prompted a bit of stir in the customer reviews universe, and many shop owners have questions regarding their reviews. The first thing everyone should know is that this sort of thing is typical of Internet technology, and, very typical of Google. If there’s anything constant with Google and marketing on the web, it’s change.
So, what changed?
In short, Google has switched the way they source and display third-party reviews. Prior to this latest change, when a shop came up on Google Places, Google would grab reviews from sources like CustomerLink, Yelp, Citysearch and others and put a portion of the review into the Google Places box along with the shop location and image and the ranking in “stars.”
Well, the new system is now going to focus on reviews put directly into Google by holders of Google user accounts (this is very similar to how Yelp works). The reasons for this change are numerous, but how they affect you and your shop are not particularly large. CustomerLink generated reviews frequently show up in the Places window in three ways: as partial text from specific reviews, a link directly to your share site, and as part of a tally of total reviews.
Now, if Google pulls reviews from your CustomerLink share site, Google isn’t going to be using partial texts from anyone but their own reviews. (Not really surprising if you think about it.) The second element, the link directly to your share site will still be there, however, it’s just in a different spot, under the text from the Google-generated reviews. The third piece, the tally of reviews, is mostly the same as well. Google will now serve up a first tally that only counts their own reviews, and then, below, they will show other sources with tallies respective to the site from which they come. (See the link at the bottom of the page if you’re interested in the specifics of how it works and why.)
So, change, yes: change that affects you very much, not really. Although, we will certainly be looking for ways to capitalize on the new changes for you, so stay tuned!
Most importantly, don’t forget what the real point of your customer reviews and your share site is. While feeding into Google Places is all fine and dandy, the real point is to show up as many ways as possible in search engine searches. So, Google Places, great. But your reviews also show up and boost your Facebook and Twitter pages for search too, not to mention that they totally power your share site itself. All of those pages, along with Google Places, are working together to give your shop as many ways as possible to show up when someone is looking for service. So, bottom line, yes, Google has made some changes. Again.
We’ll keep you on top of your online marketing, so don’t worry. The new Google review system presents new opportunities for you, and you can count on us to, as always, find ways to help you get the most out of whatever comes next. You fix the cars; we’ll handle the marketing.
Want to learn more?
Rather than reinvent the wheel, techcrunch.com has a good article about the Google update, which you can read HERE
John,
Gotta love all the updates in GP this year, eh?
Crazy hard to keep up. I think you are right not so much a big deal and all the third party review sites still have value. A small business should still be trying to get a diversified portfolio of reviews from around the web in their niches and using tools like demandforce or customerlink is never a bad strategy.
Hi Matthew,
I agree with you. This stuff is changing so fast. So many businesses are just barely realizing that we’re in a review economy, finding the courage to embrace it in some “present form,” and, just as they begin to find some footing, lots of noise gets made about some new change to this brand-name platform or that. Hard for them to know what to think and do. The main thing we can do is preach calm. I know, at least personally, as cool as Google + is, for the most part, I still hear crickets when I poke around. A lot of people are only just getting their Facebook accounts rolling. I think there’s a big gap between the early adopters and the population at large.