The Power and Impact of Google Maps

[earlpearl]

A recent update from the google groups sections and a screen save of the search:

I guess there are a lot of issues here. The concerns of Miriam and Okay with regard to the assumption by the writer that Google is "connected" to him by virtue of his payment history, certainly being one of them, and an important one.

I'm fascinated that the other site achieved what Mike describes as an authoritative one box. More amazingly the other site achieved it for a very generic business term; flowers Denver.

I'll be going back through Bill's articles on patents and probably looking at that site to see if there are clues to this occurrance.

For the time being I'm glad I'm not in the shoes of this person whose url sits
directly beneath the map and is evidently losing big bucks in that potential customers aren't clicking on his site.

Hi Tim, We just wanted to let you know that your plight has not gone unnoticed here in the Google offices. We're discussing how your specific case is interacting with our ranking algorithms internally right now. We realise that "we're talking about it" doesn't help you much at the moment, but I'm afraid by policy we don't discuss the details of ranking in public forums like this one. Thanks for getting in touch, -the Google Maps team
More options Dec 21, 1:08 pm


tjohnson@denverflowers.co¢??m View profile
Mike, Thanks for the response. I'm sure your team can imagine the losses we have incurred over the past 72 hours. Lost revenue, inventory costs, staffing costs, migration of our customer base, etc.. I'm not even sure how to respond at this point. I honestly do appreciate your note and only wish - if this circumstance had to occur - we could have dealt with it 60 or 90 days ago, not when it made the greatest possible negative impact on us.

[pops]

Dave, what I see is a bit different from your screenshot. I see Denver flowers at number 1. In either case, it's hard to figure how Google chooses to display only one of them in the map.

[pops]

OOPS, I see my search was [denver flowers] and yours was [flowers denver].

[earlpearl]

Its astonishing that with either search, both of which are general and probably for most other cities would never show a single business, in this case it has.

I'm a bit skeptical at the horrid conditions the business has faced. There are after all probably a large number of long tail searches for flowers in denver. Still this guy's persistance and argument actually got a public response from inside Google. That is also amazing.

They need to put significantly more effort into cleaning the algo's that operate within maps. This is but one example of many problems businesses have, although it is certainly a dramatic one.

[earlpearl]

Whoa!

A couple of hours later and a search for either "Denver flowers" or "flowers denver" turned up organic results without an authoritative onebox.

Visually it makes an incredible difference, at least to my (currently sleepless) eyes.

The site of the owner that was complaining is dramatically more visable.

There is an incredible impact tied to the appearance of maps within organic google searches and this has been a dramatic example. It also appears that raising the ante with google (if you can get through) may well have a significant and possibly immediate effect.

[earlpearl]

.....and a couple of hours later the "authoritative onebox" has returned.

I have seen google add and drop the onebox consistently (on an unpredictable basis) for other terms over a period of time. Additionally, for the same term the authoritative onebox might be replaced by a normal onebox listing 3 businesses. In fact at times, the normal onebox will be seen below the top 3 sites in organic search.

I wouldn't want to be the complaining flower shop owner these days. On the other hand it would be great to be the guy whose site keeps showing up in the onebox.

In one sense I go back to what miriam and okay referenced.....that google doesn't have a contractural or monetary relationship with the florist who is suffering insofar as its algo's are independantly developed.

On the other hand if the algo's are so dramatically impacting a business or businesses then Google needs to be accountable and responsive and not unduly submit that operator to spending countless fruitless hours trying to find people within Google who can be responsive with regard to the impact of the algos.

[pops]

The map I see for [denver flowers] has changed dramatically but not in a way that helps this company:

[mvandemar]

I see it back the other way at times (just thinkflowers in the map), and at times without a one box at all. It changes.

-Michael

[earlpearl]

yeah, Mike:

My experience over the year in watching map/onebox placement has been that it can change. Some sites will get the authoritative one at one point and then be part of the more normal onebox with 3 businesses showing in the map. Sometimes there won't be a onebox at all for the search phrase. At other times the normal onebox will be placed under the first 3 ranked sites within the serps page. Google has referenced that they place the onebox under several links to sites when the sites are more authortative. But since there is so much fluctuation I think they are still experimenting and gathering click through behavior.

I generally don't see it fluctuate this much....but I can't be certain. It's possible that google is responding to this guy and creating more fluctuation than normal. I can't say at all.

Earlier in the year, Melissa Mayer, Google VP of Search Products & User Experience referenced that Google was very pleased with universal onebox maps in organic search and would be experimenting with it.

I suspect they still are experimenting. They are gathering data on visitor click through behavior contingent on existance or non-existance of the onebox, which type of onebox and where it is placed.

[pops]

Seems to me the results are fluctuating all over the place. right now I'm seeing three businesses in the maps for both searches. Hard to believe someone isn't tweaking something.