Google Places UK – Dashboard Update…?
Well, after my exchanges with Nyagoslav at Optilocal and Phil at Local Visibility- Grey pins about the grey balloon markers, this morning I noticed a brand new dashboard for local businesses listing with Google Places UK.
The most obvious thing from my point of view is the categories bar – no longer separated into five boxes but one long bar with the suggestions from Google now appearing when you hold your mouse over the words. And, looking at my list without any editing, there seem to be eight categories listed – although three of them are web/website designer – even though I only ever had five in the previous listing that I completed.
And there is a check box to ask for an email when this listing is being reviewed or if any more information is needed.
Curiously, on the right hand side there is an option to ‘edit this listing in Google Places‘ which takes you back to the regular page.
I edited the new page with some changes to my categories and the result said Thank you. Your edits have been saved and will be published after review.
Looking forward to seeing what this means for Google Places UK but it looks like a step in the right direction.
UPDATE: Turns out this is the new Community Edit feature. On the Google Places page, if you click ‘Edit This Place’, it takes you through to this new Page with the option to edit the listing. It would appear that anyone can now make a change to your listing, although Google have said that they will email business owners to alert them that changes have been suggested.
To the right hand side it asks ‘Edit This Business in Google Places’ with the link. If you are logged in as the Business Owner, it takes you through to your regular Google Places dashboard, If you are not logged in as the Business Owner, you get the message ‘This Listing Is Unavailable – You may only access listings that you own.’
So far I have not received an email from Google telling me that changes have been made to the page though.
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October 29th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
I think it will still take some more time for Google places to become a necessary tool for business owners.I know many friends who are using it but almost all of them have the same opinion that it’s not much useful
October 29th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Thanks for sharing this.I hope this change in categories by Google Places will help business owners in increasing their visibility.
October 29th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Can you please explain in detail how this increase in number of categories is going to affect Small Business Owners?
October 29th, 2011 at 7:50 pm
Hiya, this looks very much like the dashboard edit for community edits. I think the dashboard for business owners & owner verified listings is still the same via the respective Google account.
Any Google Places listing seems to be editable now by any signed in Google user, however as highlighted in my recent post @ http://goo.gl/Qwk8i however it does look like verified places will be notified 1st of any potential changes.
Did you recieve an email as a result of submitting your changes?
October 29th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Interesting…we here in the States still have a the good-ol’-fashioned 5-field “Categories” area. Maybe it’s just a matter of time, though.
Is it still the case that you see Google’s category suggestions when you start typing in the category field? I do hope so…
October 29th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Is it possible that the view that you are seeing, is the new community edit feature that was rolled out last week NOT a new Places dashboard.?
It used to be that clicking on edit took you to the Dashboard but not it takes you to the community edit.
October 29th, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Harry, All local business owners should have a Google Places listing!
October 29th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Hi Gav, Hello! A fellow Brit
Ah, yes, after reading that post, it looks like you’re right. So that explains it – but no email.
October 29th, 2011 at 9:44 pm
@Mike I clicked on Edit This Place and there it was with all my details and categories. I did think it was rather odd that the regular dashboard was still there.
*Makes note to check Blumenthals before diving in next time…
October 29th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
@Phil, looks like I got it all ass about face as we say over here – it’s the community edit page not a new Places page dashboard. But, yes, the category options are still there, you just hold your mouse over the words and more along horizontally to see the suggestions.
October 29th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Damian, Not quite sure what’s going on with it showing eight categories in the Community Edit but only five in the actual GP dashboard, probably another bug
October 29th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Hamza, I think it’s more important that they encourage their clients to leave reviews