Goofy, Goofy Google Maps Review Numbers
Tuesday 25 Mar 2008
Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!
Back in January, I blogged about the fact that Google was failing to count their own reviews in the A-J listings and the small popup in Maps. One had to click into the bigger popup to see Google reviews counted amongst the other reviews from outside sources. So, a site with 10 reviews from Yelp and 4 from Google would only show 10 reviews in the primary interfaces.
Well, I’m all excited to announce that, from what I see, Google is now counting all my reviews I’ve left. They are appearing in the A-J rank and in the little popup. I looked at my oldest and newest reviews and all are being counted.
YAY, YAY….but…uhm…something is still not right…
Check out my most recent review for Mike Blumenthal’s company. From the screenshot, you can see that both Will Scott and I have left reviews for Mike.
But when you click on the 2 reviews link, you’ll see this:
For some goofy reason, Google has decided to count our 2 reviews as 4 reviews!
I went and crosschecked this with other reviews I’ve left and sure enough, Google is counting each of its own reviews twice. It’s almost as if they are overcompensating for all those months when they weren’t counting their reviews at all. Now they’re counting them twice!
What’s Going On Here?
My guess is that it’s just a bug. It certainly seems like one.
In regards to why Google is now counting my reviews, I want to mention that I don’t think this is a sandbox-type filter on the age of the reviews. I’ve been checking periodically since December and it’s only today I saw the reviews being finally counted, the most recent of which is from the end of February. So, I don’t think the reviews had to age to be counted.
Could it be that I, as a reviewer, had to age to be counted? Since Google doesn’t show you when people join up to be reviewers, I researched this in the best way I could. I found a reviewer with only one review to their credit, left on March 5, 2008. My assumption is that their profile began the day they left their sole review just a couple of weeks ago. Not only is their review being counted, it’s being counted twice. So, I don’t think reviewers have to age before their reviews are numbered.
So, I think we’ve just witnessed a change in the review system which, while addressing the older bug of Google not counting its own reviews, is just being plain silly by counting them twice. Is everyone else seeing this, too? What do you think?
7 comments Tuesday 25 Mar 2008 | admin | Local SEO
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Miriam, a bug in the Google maps implementation? Nah, couldn’t be
Google would never launch a not ready for prime time product now would they?
How silly of me
Well, Will, I suppose it could just be that Google has decided our reviews deserve to have more weight than others’. Perhaps they’ve finally recognized our greatness!
Miriam
It appears that this problem is not contained to your review of Mike. I just checked my own review of one of my clients & saw the exact same phenomenon!!!
“Could it be that I, as a reviewer, had to age to be counted?”
By that measure, my reviews should count more than your reviews.
Mike
David -
Yep, it’s showing up everywhere I check. This has got to be the silliest thing I’ve seen in Maps to date. I’ll keep an eye on it to see if it resolves.
Mike -
That being the case, we ought to get someone really old to start reviewing things…like Santa Claus or someone. Haha.
Miriam
Good News Miriam… this should really speed up your quest to power reviewer status, LOL!
[...] On a silly note, I discovered that Google has changed their previous policy of not counting their own reviews in Maps and is now counting them twice! [...]