Category: Google Maps

When you create a Google Business Profile and now go into creating service areas, Google may now offer you a list of suggested service areas in your region. Just be careful because these suggested service areas are based on your current location, not t…

Google is testing a new thin sidebar navigation on the left side of the maps interface. The sidebar has the Google Maps pin icon, then the explore tab, then trips, saved places, contribute and a more icon.

I am sure many of you have received one or two (or more) requests from Google Business Profiles saying the owner is requested access to maintain your business. I just delete them but I am hearing from Local SEOs that this is becoming more and more of a…

Google is testing a new user interface and design for the photos and street view imagery in a local panel knowledge panel within Google Maps. This is being spotted by a lot of SEOs within the community.

With the World Cup just around the corner, Google is asking certain businesses, like bars, restaurants and other venues if they will be showing the world cup at their location. If they add the “showing the world cup” attribute to their business profil…

Google has added to the Google Business Profiles Google Posts or Updates section the ability to use a cropping tool when you upload photos to your updates. So now you can upload photos and crop them later in the Google Updates section.

Another small study done by Joy Hawkins says that the recency of reviews does impact the rankings of those local business listings in Google Search and Google Maps. Like the previous studies, this was not really statistically significant but it is nice…

Google Business Profiles and business listings reviews are going missing, dropping out completely, again, but this time it seems to be related to automated suggested edits occurring on some business profiles.

Last week I reported on how Google Local reviews can display how many reviews a specific reviewer left in a specific city. Well, Google is also doing this by category, how many reviews a specific reviewer left for the business category type.

Google has recently, estimates are in the past few weeks, added auto-play video thumbnails in the local finder on mobile. Allie Margeson spotted this and posted a video of it in action on Twitter, which I will embed below.

Joy Hawkins and her team published another local ranking study, this one says that hitting ten reviews on your local listing will result in a ranking boost in the Google local results. But getting more than ten reviews does not help you rank better in …

Google’s local listings show for some listings the number of reviews left by a specific reviewer in a particular location. So if a specific person left 15 reviews and those reviews are for businesses within a particular city, Google may show that.

Google is now redirecting some (or all) of those trying to edit their business profiles in the Google Business Profile manager to the Google Search interface. You can still manage to get in there but on first click, you are taken to Google Search to m…

Google is not going to be migrating the Google Business Profile photo analytics section, known as “Insights” from the Business Profile manager to the new performance dashboard in search. Joy Hawkins, a Google top contributor, and local SEO, confirmed t…

A new study from Sterling Sky shows that putting keywords in the local reviews on business listings does not help improve the local listings ranking in Google Search. The study said, “it does not improve rankings.”

A few months ago, we reported Google was testing an expanded menu to manage your Google Business Profile in Google Web Search. Well, now it seems to be fully rolled out, where Google is giving business owners the ability to quickly edit their business …

There are some signs that Google web search results are displaying the local pack, the local search results box, less often and for fewer queries. The most shocking state is from Mozcast which says it use to show for around 40% of queries but now it i…

A few months ago, we spotted Google testing a dynamic search bar refinement interface in the core search results. Well, now it seems Google is testing a similar variation for the local panel interface in Google Search.

Google Maps and local panels have shown booking, appointment, reservation, and other ordering solutions from third parties for many years. And while we have a way to opt-out, it is still causing a lot of confusion and frustration for these small busine…

There are numerous reports of Google doing some mass pruning and removals of reviews from the local maps results, from Google Business Profile listings. This is done every now and then, it is unclear if this is a bug or some new filter being applied t…