You may have seen this button on a Google Places page when you attempted to write a review for a business while you were not logged into your Google account.

Up until recently, if you didn’t have a Google account you could not post a review on Google Places.  Inside sources are saying that this is going to change!  Read current policy.

For business owners, the current policy meant that only about 25% of their happy customers could post an in-store review if they were asked to share their positive experience online.  The Google Places App simplifies review collection right at the point of experience for Google account holders but it left many people unable to participate.

In the automotive industry, Google Places is the #1 free source of referral traffic for car dealers.  Our busiest automotive clients have Google Places listings with over 40,000 impressions a month with the average around 15,000 impressions a month.

Properly configured and merchandized Google Places pages drive thousands of clicks per month to the dealer’s primary website.  Google Places is an important part of a digital marketing strategy; it is the yellow pages meets consumer reports.

Change In Review Posting Policy

A respected industry source has started telling clients that Google will drop the gmail account requirement and allow anyone to post a review.  This change, according to this source, will be happening over the next week.

What does this mean for Google Places?  What does this mean for third party review platforms? In the automotive industry there are popular platforms that include Dealerrater.com, PrestoReviews.com, and CarDealerCheck.com so what will this change mean for them?

I will have a follow-up article on how this change, when confirmed, will impact 3rd party review platforms.

When this change is confirmed,  it will be a great opportunity for business owners and especially car dealers who have strong customer service processes and have implemented iPads in their store for review collection.

Of course, you don’t need an iPad to post a review, any device can be used for Google Places; this was confirmed recently by Scott Falcone with an email from the Google Places team.

Don’t Put Your Review Eggs In One Basket

When Google changes their review posting policy to allow non gmail accounts, I still recommend that business owners spread out their posts to the review website that are dominant in their market on Google Page One.

I especially want business owners to identify existing YELP users because Apple’s Siri assistant uses Yelp.com reviews in listing local businesses.  If you have not tested this feature, ask Siri on your Apple 4s this question: “Chevrolet Dealers” and you can see the output Siri gave me in New Jersey.

I also recommend business owners use review platforms that allow the business to own their review content.  These platforms allow business owners to syndicate reviews on their blogs, websites, and even to create custom profile pages for the sales professionals.

A solid reputation marketing strategy must acknowledge that many review sites can impact buyers during the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) and thus you can’t just focus on Google Places.

However, if this change in policy is confirmed this week, this will be a big boost for Google Places relevance.  It will also allow Google to better monetize the Google Adwords Express program which allows business owners to run ads with their current review counts, as shown below for Norman Jeep Chrysler Dodge in Oklahoma City.

These special Adwords Express ads really stand out from the normal Adwords ads and they have some very interesting ROI, which I will cover at the 2012 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Las Vegas, Feb 1-3rd.

So I’ll keep you posted when we can get an official response this week to this insider tip.

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
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Brian Pasch

I was driven to a website called Car Dealer Check (CarDealerCheck.com) by a Twitter comment on an unrelated topic and when I landed on the page for a Nissan Dealer in Florida, I was taken back by how many paid ads were running on this dealership listing page.  Take a look at the page that I found for Sutherlin Nissan of Fort Meyers below:

The page is organically optimized for the dealership name, as shown be the META tags for this page:

And I highlighted the paid ad sections (in pink) that lead consumers away from this dealer’s review page to provide leads for related automotive services and their local competitors.  There is nothing illegal about what Car Dealer Check is doing since they are not using the dealers name in the main URL and only in the page tagging.

This however, is just another confirmation that companies are using the guise of consumer reviews to produce Page One organic results that leak brand equity away from car dealers.  If someone was looking for information about this dealer, you can see by the pink box how many “land-mines” are in key areas to generate revenue for the website owner.

CarDealerCheck Triggers Negative POD Score Points

If you are paying CarDealerCheck.com for their service, they may be willing to take off the paid ads from your listing page.  If you are not using CarDealerCheck.com I would request that your dealership name be removed from their database.  There is no law that says that they have to comply but I would ask out of professional coutesy.

Attacks on a dealer’s brand name is the reason why POD Score™ was introduced.  Dealer’s need to understand that their brand name is under attack and that they need a Page One Defense (POD). Dealers need to make sure that sites like this do not easily divert their in-market customers to their competitors.

Advice to dealers: This website, if it is running Google Adsense on your review page, should not be on Page One for a search on your dealership name.

I’m not sure what changes are happening behind the scenes at Google, but I received two frantic emails today from clients that saw their review counts practically disappear.  Honda Cars of Bellevue had a total of 42 reviews showing on Google Places last week, and this is how things look today:

Acton Toyota last week had over 1,000 reviews last week and this is what their Google Places listing looks like today, November 8, 2010:

Is anyone else seeing their Google Places review counts dropping?  It looks like there is a bug in their system that is going to be hurting many businesses.