Google Places is Crowdsourcing Accuracy of Your Website Address – Hope They Have your Back This Time
Google appears to be crowdsourcing website verification on Place pages now. Hope a competitor can’t nuke your website as easily as they can mark your business as permanently closed.
Just noticed this today. On many Place Pages, if you click the link to the web site and then go back to the Place page, there will be a yellow box asking “Is this the right website for this Place?” The answers are Yes, No, Don’t Know. (See screenshot below).
I tested it out on the Place page below, because it’s breaking the rules. Didn’t know what would happen when I clicked the no box and didn’t want to cause a problem for someone playing by the rules. (Check out that stuffed category section. Surprised Google even allows you to cram that much in. Isn’t there a character limit or something? Seems like an easy fix.) Plus I picked this Place page because it does not link to the Dentist’s site, but to a subdomain at the AGD. So I clicked No and simply got a “Thanks” message at the top of the screen. Not sure what would happen if additional people did the same thing.
(Ignore phone number weirdness. That’s just a Skype plug-in)
In light of the New York Times story I was quoted in this week, about all the problems that occurred due to Google crowdsourcing the option to mark a business as closed, I certainly hope this crowdsourcing attempt, won’t lead to more competitive abuse.
Mike Blumenthal proved by closing Google on it’s own Place Page, that it only took 2 people hitting the “report business as closed” button, to mark a business as permanently closed. Sure hope a couple attempts at reporting someone’s website as incorrect, is not enough to delete or change the site on their claimed Place page.
Anyone have a throw away or test Place page we can test this out on? 
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#1 Google Places is Crowd Sourcing Accuracy of Your Website Address | Google Places Optimization News and Tips | Scoop.it wrote on September 9, 2011 :
[...] Google Places is Crowd Sourcing Accuracy of Your Website Address [...]
#2 Nyagoslav wrote on September 9, 2011 :
Hey Linda, nice catch! But I seem to not be able to reproduce what you are seeing. When I click on the website link on the Place page it opens a it in a new tab. Then I go back to the listing and refresh it but nothing happens. I tried the same via the SERP too, but it didn’t work either.
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#3 Linda Buquet wrote on September 10, 2011 :
Did you do it on that same listing? Because it’s not doing it on all listings. I checked a few and only some showed the option to mark as incorrect.
So could be it’s just a test and I hit a test server. Or could be that once someone marks it as incorrect, the option no longer shows up it just gets sent to Google to review or something?
#4 Stever wrote on September 10, 2011 :
Linda,
I did the same search, could not find the Bettinger listing but saw another, Andrew Frank DDS, using a page off another website – dentalsenders.com but it redirects to patientactivator.com – a dentist patient management software application.
Is the dental industry becoming as shady as the locksmiths??? And these guys are supposed to be licensed professionals. sheesh!
Stever recently posted..Why Details in Google Places Pages Should Be Essential Content.
#5 Linda Buquet wrote on September 10, 2011 :
No that’s legit. Dental Senders is a service similar to DemandForce. But DS got bought and moved reviews to PatientActivator. DS in the past has set up Place pages for Drs. that violated tons of rules. Not trying to be spammy but they just don’t specialize in Places and don’t know the rules.
#6 Linda Buquet wrote on September 10, 2011 :
Here’s the Bettinger listing. http://g.co/maps/mbydp
Let me know if you can see the ““Is this the right website for this Place?” box. Curious if I’m the only one seeing it. It’s gone for me now but I think that’s because I already said no.
#7 Stever wrote on September 10, 2011 :
No, I don’t get the “is this the right website?” box.
DS/PA may be legit but they need to do something about cleaning up those redirects. It looks bad and looks very very spammy. A user goes to check out a website that supposedly lists that dentist only to end up on the home page of a dental appointment management application. How many dentists were listed on the old site and had been using those pages as their web presence? And how many used those pages in other local listing services like Places and Yellow Pages and other directories? Now they all redirect to something that has no value to a user seeking a dentist. How many other dentists are checking on the competition’s links only to be inadvertently introduced to a service that might be of interest them? That may not have been PA’s intention, they likely just did the easy step of redirecting everything to the new home page and not realizing the implications. Might help get a few extra sales, but it looks sleezy. IMHO.
Stever recently posted..Why Details in Google Places Pages Should Be Essential Content.
#8 Linda Buquet wrote on September 10, 2011 :
Oh I think maybe I was commenting on something different than what you were referring to. Didn’t see the listing you mentioned since no link, so maybe something else is going on I have not seen before..
#9 Matt McGee wrote on September 10, 2011 :
Linda – I clicked your link above in the comments, clicked the website URL, then closed the new window and — yes, I get the little yellow box asking me if the web site is correct. Just FYI.
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#10 Linda Buquet wrote on September 10, 2011 :
Thanks Matt for letting me know.
#11 Vin wrote on September 14, 2011 :
Linda,
You always do a great job at making me look at things from a different angle. It is a little disconcerting to think they’re might be a way for people to abuse this new feature to harm my places page. Do you think there is anyone to combat this other than hoping for a change in Google’s operations?
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#12 malunggay56 wrote on November 3, 2011 :
It looks bad and looks very very spammy. A user goes to check out a website that supposedly lists that dentist only to end up on the home page of a dental appointment management application. |
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