A post over at Mike Blumenthal’s blog on Understanding Google Maps & Local Search regarding receiving a score of 100% in the Local Business Center for completeness of your Local Listing got me thinking.

Carter Maslan, Director of Product Management for Google answered a series of questions from Mike back in June about the new data rich Desktop for the Local Business Center. One little gem of an answer indicated that the percentage of completeness (say that 10 times fast) doesn’t have any bearing on your ranking in the 10-pack (or #-pack, depending on the day.)

Mike’s post showed us that use of categories doesn’t contribute to percentage of completion at all – but experience tells us that use of categories can have a profound effect on your ranking.

The irony: Google is showing a score for relevance based on how complete your listing is for human consumption, yet not for how complete your listing is for the search engine to show your listing to the humans you’re being scored for.

2 days ago Google launched a new dashboard for the Local Business Center, allowing users to see the statistical data associated with use of their local listings. The information available is as follows (taken directly from an entry on the Google Lat Long Blog):

Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a result on a Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.
Actions: The number of times people interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times they clicked through to the business’ website or requested driving directions to the business.

Top search queries: Which queries led customers to the business listing; for example, are they finding the listing for a cafe by searching for “tea” or “coffee”?
Zip codes where driving directions come from: Which zip codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location.

Even if you’re a brand new user, just claiming your local listing for the first time, you’ll be able to see data from the last month.

Read the full article from Google here.

I was reviewing a client’s Google local listing today and I noticed a link to a Google Local Business Center Feedback survey that I hadn’t seen before. It’s not showing up in all my client accounts, just some of them.

I took the survey, it allows space at the end to include the things you like about the Google Local Business Center as well as problems you have encountered and things that you don’t like about the interface or the functionality. You can also submit your email address at the end of the survey for contact regarding your survey or further research opportunities.

I’m curious as to whether this is a new survey Google has issued after all the recent changes in their local listings or if it’s a survey that’s been around for a while and I’m just now seeing it. Has anyone else out there seen it, and if so, how recently?

There have been some changes recently to the way that Google is returning local listings in both the 10-pack and Google Maps. Businesses that have consistently maintained high profile listings for competitive keywords have noticed their listings dropping from sight. New listings have been showing up containing incorrect contact information and in some cases reflecting odd categories.

If you are experiencing a drop-off in local rankings or problems with duplicate listings showing incorrect information, I recommend the following:

Search for your business by name in Google Maps. If necessary, add a local qualifier, i.e. “My Business, City”. Once you find them all, you will need to claim them and modify them to reflect accurate information. It seems to be commonly agreed upon that duplicate listings that contain the same information will merge into a single listing in Google’s system. Do not delete duplicate listings. The information in them was pulled from somewhere, and there is a possibility that they may regenerate if you delete them.

Be vigilant. This is not a case where you can “set it and forget it” – check back in on your listing every once in a while, make sure it’s alone. The Google Local Business Center allows you to add additional information to your listing, and has a new User Guide.

It seems to me that the only people that know everything about Google Local are the people at Google Local, but in searching for answers to my questions I came across some really good resources:

Understanding Google Maps & Local Yahoo Search
Local Search