So I have been posting about Google places several times in the past, showing some of the problems I have been experience and asking Google to fix these issues, in some cases you are dealing with very high traffic terms so I am dumbfounded when these problems with citations are not fixed for months if not years. In November I located a in this post: with a term which has around 6,000+ queries a month in Australia this issue was giving around 100+ citations which were false.
Now this problem noted in the post has not been fixed I have noticed another issue, I was recently researching the term “Plumbing Sydney” and I saw some very interesting Google Places citation data. I will let the following images do the talking:
The first image shows the term, plumbing Sydney with a bunsiness CBD Plumbing ranking in first position.
citations problems Google places 1
The second image shows that 6 reviews are coming from a website called “Top 10 Australia” interesting website for a Plumbers to be on wouldn’t you think?
citations problems Google places 2
So when you then click this link on the 3rd image it links you up to Shangri-La Hotel Sydney? Random!! This is not even the right business it is a totally different business which is been linked to yet the review citations are been counted for CBD Plumbing, Unfair isn’t it!
citations problems Google places 3
Try this search term yourself: http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=plumbing+sydney&oq=plumbing+sydney&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=6374l6374l0l6589l1l1l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0
So this leaves me with the feeling that Google places review data should not even be counted by Google at times, it is a strong ranking factor in high competition niches so then you have citation data with so many issues.
I wonder if Google is on top of these problems within Google Places! It is annoying me and I am sure it is annoying many other digital marketers.
Please post your thoughts below on this matter:
