The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Just as you were absorbing all the Q1 local search excitement[1], Q2 came marching along with a bundle of new happenings and surprises. Don’t worry if you missed out on any of the key announcements and observations — I’ve got a little list for you here:
1. Novel stats on persistent reviewers
Curtis Boyd[2] included some statistics that I’ve never seen compiled before in his presentation at a LocalU conference. As captured in the above tweet from Joy Hawkins[3], 8% of unhappy customers or spammers whose first review is removed will come back and write another one. 60% of them will simply republish their initial review or one that’s quite similar, but 40% will make their second go even worse.
The takeaway here is that you’ve got to monitor reviews constantly[4], and the relief of removal can be short-lived unless you’re watchdogging your profiles and working to get anything removed that violates Google’s content guidelines[5].
2. Both Google and Yelp promote eco features
Yelp reports[6] that searches for “plant-based” have seen a 56% average increase each year for three years running, and that searches for “EV charging” are seeing a 41% average annual increase. In response to growing global demand for more planet-friendly services, Yelp has debuted a set of new searchable attributes, including “EV charging station available,” “plastic-free packaging,” “provides reusable tableware,” “bring your own container allowed,” and “compostable containers available.” These are in addition to existing filters, like “vegan” and “bike parking”.
Meanwhile, Google is encouraging its local guides[7] to focus