Maybe you noticed there is a slight change to Google Maps. We know Google wants every place, business, restaurant and shop to have the most accurate information available in Google Maps. So now they have rolled out new easy ways to add places as well as suggest some edits on Google Maps for Android, iOS, and in Google Search. It now gives the ability to add and edit information and this is available to everyone worldwide.
Here are some details of the new features:
• Add places or suggest edits
As people will be able to contribute new and updated information to Google Maps, you now have the option to add missing places and edit an existing business. You can add places that don’t exist.
• More details about a place
You can also contribute new knowledge about a place. There is now the option to contribute more information about a business beyond just its name, address, and phone number. For example, you can mention what other services the business has and so on. Note that this feature currently only works on Google Maps for Android… Remember Google owns part of Android… and Pokemon Go.
• Verify and approve edits suggested by others.
If someone has suggested new information for a certain place, you will see a note on page that “someone suggested new info.” These are pending suggestions. Clicking on that link will let your verify whether the suggested information is accurate. If enough people say the information is accurate, it will be published on the Maps listing. This is good as it prevents people from maliciously suggesting inaccurate edits. This feature is available to Android users on the Google Maps app and both Android and iOS users on mobile Google Search.
Remember Google’s latest Search Guidelines update? They said Visit in Person was going to be important. They will most likely track Android users who visited the location in person to also verify the accuracy.
Quick Info: Useful Search Operators for SEO
You may or may not already know about these. Go ahead and test them. Just another group of handy tricks to add to your toolbox of knowledge.
• cache: – example (cache:http://www.domain.com) This shows the version of the webpage from the search engine’s cache. Cache shows what page content the search engine considers relevant to retrieve.
• related: – example (related:http://www.domain.com
• site: – example (related:http://www.domain.com