Google Places Categories Gone?
In the past 2 weeks Google has made some changes to their Google Business listings. In the past you could click on “Edit Details” when viewing the company’s Places page. After you clicked on “Edit Details” you could see the current company Categories and users could make Category suggestions. Now these categories are only visible to the owner of the page.
What was once visible to the public is now hidden.
Optimizing Google Business / Google Places Pages
One of the most import things that you can do to optimize a Google Places page is choosing appropriate Categories that represent the company. Now that you can not see the categories of pages you do not own or control, it makes it much harder for an SEOer to suggest improvements to companies’ Google Places pages.
You now must be the owner of the Places page to see the Categories.
It seems that Google is converting the Places pages more to a social media platform. Google Places is Now Google Business. This means that the business listings are no longer community driven, but more like a Google + Page. Oh wait that is exactly what has happened.
It seems that everyday SEO becomes harder and harder, thanks Google. I know it is hard, so here is a a great place to see the categories broken down by keyword searches.
Do you have any suggestions to SEOers on how to get around no longer being able to see these Google Places page’s Categories? Is so please leave a comment, I would love to hear your opinion.
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