Just got this hot off the press… What do yall think of Googles’ decision to “merge” Google Places and Google +1? Kinda sorta forcing businesses to abandon Places and go to Plus… indexing Plus while no longer indexing Places in the SERPS?

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/05/30/my-cliffsnotes-on-the-google-places-plus-merger/

How will this affect your business? Your clients?

@atlantarobi,

At this point, it appears to be not much more than a cosmetic change, so I am not too worried.

HOWEVER, a Google rep confirmed that these new Google+ Local pages and Google+ brand pages will eventually be merged, and THAT, I think, will be a game changer. Google will presumably take interaction on your page into consideration when ranking local results, essentially forcing business owners to start actively using their Google+ pages (just my conjecture).

Long story short, I plan to be more active on Google+ (not by choice, though). 

- Lukas

@atlantarobin

This feels like a continuation of Google’s plan to force G+ on everyone and everything, despite the fact that there seems to be very little activity over there.

There is currently an uproar on YouTube where people are upset that (in some cases) their thumbs up/down has been replaced with a +1 button.

thanks for bringing this to our attention…I’m still trying to get G+ figured out and beneficial????? @atlantarobin

@atlantarobin  I think this is a huge plus (pun intended) Places, for the time being, still need to be managed from the places dashboard, not inside G+. But eventually they’ll be completely merged with the business page. How awesome to just have one place to go to manage everything! The SEO benefits alone are the reason to be on Google Places and G+. Places/business page rankings/maps will still show up at the top SERP and will still need to be optimized for the best placement. I don’t think it will hurt those of us who offer this as a service, on the contrary I think it’ll help people realize that they need a professional to optimize for them. The smart ones are optimized and claimed already just because it’s a great way to get more leads for your business. I like the change!

The web is dynamic, that means it’s ever changing.
Most of the time it can be referred to as progress,
although not always in the case of Google.

Roughly 80 million Google Place pages globally were
automatically converted into Google+ Local pages.
At least that’s what Google’s Marissa Mayer is saying.

It’s a dramatic change to be sure, but I think for the better
though. Yes, Google is self-serving but look at it from another
prospective. For a local marketing consultant it provides:

1. More client offerings: pain in the tush as it is, clients
being forced to set-up Google+ accounts didn’t necessarily have
the time or know how to set-up Places. Now combine the two and
you have more ways to service your client.

2. Tighter control of online reputation: Google exclusive use of
Zagat reviews will filter out notoriously bad and spammy reviews
from sources like Yelp, Dex, etc.

3. The sheer marketing power of the Google platform.

Side Note: not drinking Google kool-aid, just making lemonade
from the lemons of change.

@rooseveltjones  Thanks for your response.  The problem I have is that now I have two Google+ pages for my business – the one I created myself about six months ago and the one recently created by Google from my Places page.  How do I merge these so I only have one page?

@rooseveltjones  When I go to my Google dashboard and click on the link for my Google business page, instead of showing my original places page it now shows what looks like a Google+ page for my business, but it’s not the one I created.

@dianebianchi Yup, you’re only allowed one Google+ profile page and one Google+ Local business page whether from single or multiple accounts. And yes, they are different.