Your Google Places changes are much faster, for example any changes that you make in your business information will go live in under 48 hours now.
This new system feeds directly into Google’s newly updated “knowledge graph” data structure which make things even more easier to manage and add more trust by Google
This interface is much more friendly, along with a lot of useful tips & insights included already into the dashboard which helps educate noob-ish business owners to get started easily and helps make the right decisions for their business
Most of the Service Area businesses now get a Google+ Local Listing & this page even hide their address!
Though, there are a lot of drawbacks currently in this new system, Google plans to address most of them in their coming updates:
- Now, you cannot add Custom Categories even though now you can choose up to 10 different categories for your business
- Their is no improvement in their verification system
- Any business owners need a personal Google+ Account in order to add videos or manage their social streams on Google+ Local page
- No additional analytical insights have been made available to go with the new system
Even though with all these updates. Google is still advises that you do NOT merge any of your existing Google Local Listing with new Google+ Local Page yet. They already made it clear that still their are lots of errors & the process will take some time. Till then, its best to wait it out. One of the Google+ Representative with whom I had a recent conversation told me that its said that when the system is finally ready Google will ask all the businesses to upgrade their listings with little to no work on their part.
Mike Blumenthal has written a blog post about the new
Google Places Dashboard providing several screenshots, you can check out his blog for more.
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