Google places taking up to 8 spots

[nickoran]

In the last couple of months some of our clients are noticing that for some of their targetted keywords they are slipping onto the second page, when we perform the searches we notice that Google places is taking up 8 spots on some of the searches leaving only 2 organic listings on the first page! ( I will confess I have seen an influx in places listings before and it didnt last very long, the search results slowly returned to how they used to be before )

So any suggestions or pointers to optimising for the places listings please?

But also, has anyone else had this problem? any general suggestions?

[morestar]

Hey Nick, I'm also finding a problem with providing accurate rankings to clients through the use of software due to these changes - WEBCEO (which is what I use for rank checking) doesn't recognize Places listings of which you're right, they do take up most of the page for local business searches a lot.

For a personal site of mine, I've somehow managed to beat the Places listings PLUS have the places listing show up below the (organic) result. I'm sure there's a school of people who believe you can optimize a Places account, but that's not what I did. I actually tried to be as simple as possible but made sure my 'Specialty' was 'SEO'.

I've seen people ask within WebProWorld ways of optimizing for Places but haven't seen any real answers from the experts yet...maybe today Nickoran...

[LD]

... I've somehow managed to beat the Places listings PLUS have the places listing show up below the (organic) result...

I would sure like to know a tad bit more about this one morestar.

[Milo]

( I will confess I have seen an influx in places listings before and it didnt last very long, the search results slowly returned to how they used to be before )?

In my experience, I have not yet seen the result return to what they used to be. Places takes anywhere from 4-8 results for my main keyword and has done so since Google implemented this addition. With Places, Images and News, it doesn't leave much for organic listings and its simply ridiculous to have a Place listing as well as an organic listing on the same page (sometimes one after the other eg positions 4 for Place and 5 for Organic). I don't want to "trick" Places as I stay well and clear from "blackhat" but I cannot understand how its possible to compete in a major city when I work from a small country town (where my studio is).

I understand how Places is usefull for some businesses, a car mechanic for example, but not for businesses that have no borders (stationery in my case, we ship anywhere).

Would love to hear from the Pro's in here

[morestar]

I would sure like to know a tad bit more about this one morestar.

Search "seo in burlington on" for the listing above the Places results and "seo in burlington" for just the regular results.

For the first one you should see that my (terrible shoemaker site) is above the Places listings and occupies a places listing.

I was coming to get you in Toronto but lost a lot of time...maybe after the summer

You thought I was fibbing??

[morestar]

In my experience, I have not yet seen the result return to what they used to be. Places takes anywhere from 4-8 results for my main keyword and has done so since Google implemented this addition. With Places, Images and News, it doesn't leave much for organic listings and its simply ridiculous to have a Place listing as well as an organic listing on the same page (sometimes one after the other eg positions 4 for Place and 5 for Organic). I don't want to "trick" Places as I stay well and clear from "blackhat" but I cannot understand how its possible to compete in a major city when I work from a small country town (where my studio is).

I understand how Places is usefull for some businesses, a car mechanic for example, but not for businesses that have no borders (stationery in my case, we ship anywhere).

Would love to hear from the Pro's in here

I think for local search Google's main interest is for customers/searchers to find real businesses/products or services.

The problem in your case is that although you ship everywhere, the people searching for your products can find businesses in their area and that's for most businesses. When the Yellow pages where popular it would be rare that we'd pick one up to look for a service in another state or province right?

Ya let's see what the Pro's have to say...where are they??

[dburdon]

The Google Places page tend to be featured in geo-locational sensitive searches. E.g. hotels. The type of and number of searches is also dependent on the location of the searcher.

[PhilipDunn]

I have a client in a suburb next to a large city that has been trying for ages to get into the Large City Places listings - no luck yet. It seems you have to have an address and phone number in the large city or forget it. They do well in their suburb.

What confuses me is - are there two forms of Places listings?

The same client currently has 7 two line Places listings that come up in their main keywords searches. That I believe has gone up to 10 before. But once the traditional 2 line Places listings disappeared, replaced with expanded listings, with the pinkish pointer, an image and meta description. So I have these two different forms currently for different clients. Kind of Hybrid Places and Organic listing - why the different forms?

[LD]

I was coming to get you in Toronto but lost a lot of time...maybe after the summer You thought I was fibbing??

[Bill Treloar]

Sadly, I've actually seen it when the entire first page of Google — all ten listings — were Places listings.

That's just unacceptable.