It appears that Google’s choice to replace its star rating system with Zagat scores for local search results isn’t a massive hit with a few businesses.
Last month, Google exposed what seems to be the main reason it acquired Zagat, when it announced Google+ Local, successfully replacing Google Places with Google+ infused local results and Zagat scores.
“Each place you see in Google+ Local will now be scored using Zagat’s 30-point scale, which tells you all about the various aspects of a place so you can make the best decisions,” Google explained, when Google+ Local was announced. “For example, a restaurant that has great food but not great decor might be 4 stars, but with Zagat you’d see a 26 in Food and an 8 in Decor, and know that it might not be the best place for date night.”
A few businesses claim to be losing traffic simply because Google replaced its ratings system with Zagat’s scoring system. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to an interesting thread in the Google Product Forums.
A few have suggested that Zagat scores tend to be more suitable for restaurants, and aren’t so excellent for other sorts of businesses. There’s no question that Zagat has in the past been restaurant-focused.
However Google has thrust the Zagat system across the much broader local business search space. I don’t see why the system couldn’t actually help some businesses, as Zagat is a pretty popular restaurant guide. Even so, it might be less useful in other industries.
For complete information, you can visit related link Google’s New Local Ratings
Cited from Webpronews
