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Google Place Search: The facts and implications for hotel marketers

November 03, 2010 |

TIG Global's blog features a great article on Google's new Place Search and the implication it has for hotel sites and OTAs a like. Place Search seems to be good for users and good for businesses with strong traditional and local SEO.

Paid Search occupies less real estate: The new location of the map, in the upper right, takes the place of three sponsored links, pushing them down and resulting in fewer ads being displayed above the fold. The map also covers additional ads by floating as the user scrolls down the page. This could potentially drive up the cost of ads in position 1-3 (at the top of the page) and diminish the amount of traffic driven through ads 4-10 (traditionally along the entire right hand side of the SERP).

Maximum of one placement in organic results: In the past, those websites that had strong SEO and local exposure could potentially occupy a position in the 7-pack as well as in the main organic section. With the merger of the traditional organic algorithm and the local search algorithm, these positions have also merged, offering only one opportunity per website.

Less traffic to your site: Going along with the above, the change in format could result in less traffic going directly to your business

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