Google launches Place Pages for Google Maps

Google recently announced that they have added increased functionality to their Maps service, in the form of Place Pages. These pages now supplement the location details about a place with information on businesses, points of interest, transit stations, neighbourhoods, landmarks and cities all over the world.

According to Google, the new Place Pages “allows a viewer to now see all the information about one place in one place”. Users can access a Place Page by clicking on “more info” in the Google Maps search results, or by clicking “more info” in the mini-bubble that appears over the map image. This enables you to get much more information about a place, including photos, videos, a StreetView preview, nearby transit stops, reviews and related websites. The information is aggregated information from places such as Citysearch, as well as other local review sources and should be a great tool for searchers, as well as local businesses to promote their services.

This new layout also benefits business listings, with more information being provided about the location and company, including details provided by the business owner, images and reviews from customers. There is a wider and longer new layout to the Maps results and major prominence is now being given to a link titled “edit this place,” which draws a new level of attention to the fact that Google views Maps as an editable, Wiki-like entity. Like Wikipedia though, this may at some time in the future raise doubts as to the reliability of some of the data within Place Pages ‘ particularly the reviews.

The new pages are useful if you’re searching for more than just an address, and they make Google Map searches more like browsing a travel guide using than a search tool. However, they impact your ability to quickly and easily compare the search results, because Google Maps has changed the behaviour of the “more info” links in search results, resulting in a more detailed view of individual listings, rather than numerous ones for the one location that can allow comparisons and selections to be made.

The new behaviour works well for destinations, but not so well if you’re trying to compare business listing results, since you need to keep hitting the back button to get back to the list of results. While Place Pages are quite useful for more in-depth detail and personalised reviews, losing the old version of the “more info” link was a bad decision and hopefully one Google will correct in the future.

Contact us if you’d like more information about Google Maps and how to add or update your business listing through Google’s Local Business Center.

Leave a Reply