Google has formally rolled out (or is rolling out) a number of enhancements to its local results. I don’t have time to go into them in depth but there’s much more content now in the right column.
Here’s a comparison of an “old” page above and a new one below:
I wrote earlier today about what I thought was a new look for Places SERPs, marrying the local site with Google Places data into a kind of mega “onebox.” It appears that the Places content has now been moved over to the right column and enhanced, including with interior photographs and links to reviews.
I much prefer the new format to the one above. What do you think?
It’s still not live for me.
November 1st, 2011 at 8:42 pm
The new one is much richer.
Where will AdWords fit into this?
November 1st, 2011 at 9:16 pm
It’s not immediately clear but I suspect it will
November 2nd, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Hey, Greg, is Google rolling this out in stages? Your samples were Bay Area based, and when we tried to test it down here in Orange County, the SERPs didn’t seem to be showing the enhancements. Any thoughts? Thx!
November 2nd, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Try Chrome. Wasn’t live for me yesterday also didn’t work on FF this morning.
November 2nd, 2011 at 8:29 pm
For anyone who’s seeing this new version live: is this “enhanced content” sidebar only activated (rolls out to the right to reveal itself) if you hover over the search result with your mouse, in the same way that the “page preview” feature currently works on Google SERP’s)?
I would imagine this sidebar only appears on hover, otherwise how would Google accommodate space-wise those SERP’s with multiple local business listings? All of those business listings can’t get this special treatment simultaneously on one page!
I also find it interesting that Google does not re-display their own reviews snippet in the sidebar, instead leaving it to only appear in the search result. With all of the imagery in the sidebar, viewer’s eyes will likely be drawn there first, where they will encounter links for reviews from “third-party” sites but find no mention of Google reviews. Such a user experience runs in contrast to Google’s recent behavior of making their reviews dominate over all else.