Will Google Places put ranking weight on google reviews instead of 3rd party now?

[NiftyMarketing]

WIth the visual update to Google Places over the past 2 days do you think that Google reviews will become a higher ranking factor as compared to 3rd party reviews. The research I have done shows that 3rd party reviews seem to correlate better with higher rankings..Any thoughts on what might be coming down the road?

[adriandg]

"My personal opinion is that citations will not diminish, at least in the short term, in importance for Google’s algorithm.  Particularly here in Brazil it’s amazing how reliant they are on sources beyond claimed Places.  They’ve just gone 100% of the way to obfuscating what those sources are." - David Mihm

Personally, i have seen that citations are still quite powerful, especially if you can get quality citations from authority sites, not just all those fluff directories, those are just useless filler.

[NiftyMarketing]

Completely agree on the Citation point. They dont provide solid info on the places page so it makes sense that they have been pulled like mymaps were. I am just wondering about thoughts on reviews from 3rd party sites vs. reviews on Google. The approach has been to diversify your reviews to mutlple sites for rankings and also for "keeping eggs out of one basket". Wondering if many are going to switch strategy based on latest info.

[djreich]

I can't imagine Google would diminish the importance of third party reviews, which is one of the most meaningful signals of a business' local authority. Google reviews seem more susceptible to spam and bugs than many high quality review sites like Yelp.

Just because Google is no longer displaying certain items on Place pages, doesn't necessarily mean Google is changing the way those items are considered as as ranking factors.

[NiftyMarketing]

I have to agree with you. We generally try to push customers to about 4 review sites Google Yelp City search And a specific vertical review site. I do think that eventually more weight will be given to google reviews simply to push business to use their service but I. Think a company would be foolish to put all eggs in the places review basket when they have such a problem with losing reviews and support.

[adriandg]

Seems to me like the third party reviews are still making an impact on the rankings, it is just that google is no longer displaying them due to legal reasons.