Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!
This is just a short note I’m jotting down out of frustration that Google Maps, for some reason I can’t guess at, does not seem to enable users to leave reviews of State or National parks. I checked for this function on a handful of parks I visit, and that are listed in Google maps, and I got nada. I don’t get it.
The NPS and various state park services, unfortunately, fall far short of receiving an A+ from me when it comes to the pages they have for their parks. I mean…seriously…I could make a whole website full of fascinating facts, photos, trail maps, reviews, weather warnings, etc. for even a single nice park. The situation the rangers and their webmasters have got going on leaves much to be desired, so I see the abundant potential good in Google Maps enabling user reviews for these places of great national interest.
If you were on vacation and trying to pick between 3-4 local parks, wouldn’t it be cool to find a review that said, “Wait until you see the gorgeous lake at this park!” or “This place has a serious rattlesnake problem. Don’t bring the dog or the kids”? Basically, such UGC would accomplish the goal of improving the relevance of Google taking the trouble to list parks. Hey, Google, how about it? If you’ll enable it, I’ll personally be reviewing every wonderful park my treehugging husband and I have hiked in. I’d be happy to make that effort.
Is there some reason I’m overlooking that would explain why Google does not allow reviews of U.S. parks?