Google is changing the name of the Google Local Business Center to “Google Places.” Why? Google says:
Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages – the way that businesses are being found today – with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.
It also announced a number of things in conjunction with the renaming:
- Enhanced listings (now “Tags”) is being expanded to new cities ($25 per month).
- Interior photography (previously speculated) is now available to SMBs and free, courtesy of Google
- Custom QR codes are available to be used in various ways by the SMB
- Favorite Places round 2
I’ve written about this in more detail at Search Engine Land.
What is also intriguing to me are some of the previously unpublished stats:
- More than 4 million business listings on Google claimed by business owners (using the Local Business Center, now Google Places)
- Nearly 2 million listings have been claimed in the United States (10 million to go)
- 20% of searches on Google are related to location
- 50 million Place Pages
- Place Pages are viewed millions of times each day
Google’s own statement about the percentage of local searches is “20%.”
This number is larger than comScore’s estimate (11%-12%), which I have previously argued is conservative. I would even argue that Google’s number here is conservative. Even so it represents about 2.8 billion local queries on Google each month.
The image in my mind is of a football team storming out of the locker room and onto the field for the start of the second half. The company no doubt feels some additional pressure these days from a cadre of local intruders: Twitter, Facebook and the likes of Foursquare et al. This announcement seems to be a statement of greater resolve to go after local and SMBs more aggressively and effectively.
Will we see the return of the Google Reseller program? It’s not clear (although that’s been promised) but Google may feel it no longer needs it.
Screenwerk 
April 20, 2010 at 6:11 am
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April 20, 2010 at 11:50 am
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April 20, 2010 at 6:30 pm
This 20% must include all the times Google chooses to show the local 7-pack even when the user did not include a specific local modifier in the query such as city name or zip. As a result they must show local for a decent amount of time when there is actually no local intent (i.e. “pizza” if you are just looking for recipes – is a simplistic example) – If it was possible to adjust for this I imagine this number would come down a few percentage points.
In relation to the store photos, this takes away some of the reliance on data providers like infoUSA for store pictures. I guess they aren’t going in-stores yet – Everscape takes a big sigh of relief or are they inevitably going to get ousted by a bigger play with more scale and resources to tackle this endeavor? If Google commoditizes in-store photos in the future, does Everscape have a backup plan?
April 20, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Everyscape’s future is assured by this move because they’re the only other player in the US doing interior photography.
April 20, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Thanks for the response. Does that imply that their is player outside of the US that does something similar? I can’t track one down (just curious).
April 27, 2010 at 5:03 am
Canpages has been doing interior shoots for almost 9 months now. We use a canadian supplier. See a sample below.
http://www.canpages.ca/list.jsp?lang=0&nt=N&na=bleu%20blanc%20rouge&ct=Rosem%E8re&pr=QC
April 27, 2010 at 11:37 am
Thanks. Does that mean now that all those shots will be on yellowpages.ca?