Last week we saw an interesting move by Google (confirmed on the official blog)
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/07/ongoing-evolution-of-place-pages.html
It seems that all citation data from 3rd party sources has been removed from Google places, Anyone who has worked in Google Places knows that Review data is highly important, Reviews are like Links for ranking withing Google Places and are seen as a strong factor.
So if clients see a huge drop in the number of reviews it has, I have an example below of how many reviews clients may lose,
Looking at the term “Sydney Restaurant” in November 2010 we saw the following ranks:
Compare this with “Sydney Restaurant” in July 2011
(view picture below)
Sydney Restaurant Google Places
Tetsuya’s = 521 reviews reduced to 85 reviews.
Quay = 335 reviews reduced to 86 reviews.
Aria Restaurant = 466 reviews reduced to 64 reviews.
It is evident to see how much of a drop some of these locations have actually had in review numbers.
Thought this change was worth sharing, to bring awareness to this area.
