Recently Barry Schwartz wrote about the “Updates from Customers” feature that people are starting to see more regularly on Google Maps. I wanted to share some things that I’ve learned about the feature and how it works.
- You probably won’t be seeing large volumes of customer-added photos just yet. The feature is still pretty buried on Google Maps so it’s easy for people to miss. This video shows how far you have to scroll down on the Google Maps app to get to the spot where you can add a photo update.
- Photo updates are different than customers leaving photos with their reviews. Google states “this differs from reviews, which they can update after the review is posted, but can only leave a single review”.
- The updates from customers get added to your listing and are visible on Google Maps, but not on Google search.
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- If you have recent Google Posts on the listing, these appear above the customer updates
- There is no way to opt out of this feature. Google states “You can’t opt-out of photo updates. Instead, you can report inappropriate photo updates.”
- Photo updates aren’t displayed in the Business Profile Manager. Basically the only way you’ll know how these are surfacing is to watch for notifications of new photos being added to your listing. Hopefully Google changes this in the future.
What do you think about this feature? Love it? Hate it? Let us know in the comments or over at the Local Search Forum.
Posted in Local Search
