In a recent update to the Google Places quality guidelines, Google have extended the range of business types that are ineligible for individual listings.
If you run services, classes or meetings as part of your business model we highlight the changes and explain what you can do about it.
In the Google Places quality guidelines page, Google have added the following additional bullet to their list of ineligible business types:
You also can’t create a Places listing for an on-going service, class, or meeting at a location that you don’t own or have the authority to represent.
Will Businesses Excluded From Google Places Survive?
This change is likely to affect a range of business types from fitness classes to religious groups. It may cause a significant cull of existing business listings that are based on locations that the business owners are not entitled to represent themselves at.
Businesses of these types rely on local traffic and exclusion from Google Places listings could have a significant impact on their ability to acquire customers.
How To Get Around Google Places Exclusions
Google have made a suggestion that businesses of this type should address the change in the following way:
Please coordinate with your host to have your information displayed on their Place page as a custom attribute or within their Description field.
The obvious problem with this is that a community hall that services a variety of local needs is now responsible for the local marketing of all the businesses that use it. Something that they may be reluctant to do or even if they are, will be difficult to achieve on a single location listing.
Alternatively based on the original statement, provided a business has the authority of the owner to list itself at that location then presumably this is acceptable, although Google do not state what form this authority should take or how it will be checked or enforced.
There are actually more problems that this new rule brings, than issues it solves. I really hope Google would either re-think it, or update/remodel it somehow.
Following on from Google’s announcement it seems they have now gone back on the suggestion to use custom attributes to promote events, services and classes. This part of the above comment on the Ineligible Business Models text has been removed. Instead Google are only recommending use of the (200 character limited) description for this information. Making it even more difficult for listing owners to reference a range of activities that take place at a shared venue or bookable premises. Perhaps this is actually because the description is more effective as a ranking factor than the custom elements and anyone using custom elements may have simply found it does not get them noticed in searches.