Google My Business

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Gettingthere
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Location: Devon
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Post by Gettingthere »

I've been looking at "holiday homes' on googlemaps in my bit of Devon. My little dot doesn't show up until you zoom in pretty close (so unlikely to pop up for any more general Devon searches.) Having clicked on a few of the entries that pop up before mine, it seems to be largely connected to number of reviews. Those that pop up earlier have many many more reviews than I do. Even a few more reviews seems to make a dot appear for other properties before mine.
Igor
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Post by Igor »

I thought I'd have a look at what Bing does with accommodation searches. I've no idea why I thought that but I did it.

It does something very similar. But it has less than half the number of places and so it's less useful. On the plus side, it seems to be consistent and it knows the difference between a hotel/b&B and a vacation rental. Well done Bing!

I've added one of our properties (needs a Microsoft login) under the category: "vacation rental homes" and just like with GMB, it does a postcard verification. I don't expect much from it, but there's no reason not to do it.
Igor lives in Fort StaySavr, a secret location high in the mountains
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NeatandPicky
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Location: Pissouri Bay, Cyprus
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Not yet available in Cyprus!

Post by NeatandPicky »

Thought I'd give Igor's idea a try...

Bing have rather a limited selection of countries so far (and Cyprus isn't one of them.)
AndrewH
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Re: Not yet available in Cyprus!

Post by AndrewH »

NeatandPicky wrote:Thought I'd give Igor's idea a try...

Bing have rather a limited selection of countries so far (and Cyprus isn't one of them.)
And nor is Greece.
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

I am trying to understand how Google maps decides when to show a holiday location. I have added us via GMB but we do not appear until you zoom right in to our location. A previous poster suggested that it could be down to number of reviews, but a neighbours gites appears and they have no reviews but the photos say its from B.com (we have 2). Another gite has 2 reviews as we have, doesn't come from B.com but appears before us when zooming in.
I can't work out the common denominator.
Tom Hart
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Post by Tom Hart »

I have noticed that I do not always appear, also the position varies.
I am not on Booking.com.
AndrewH
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Post by AndrewH »

With the Google map, I have the same experience as Tom Hart and Dusty; the property doesn't appear until you zoom right in, whereas other rentals are showing from the start. I am neither with GMB or Booking.com. I simply and cheekily just added a "Missing Place". I have no reviews yet, but I am working on it.

I have a feeling that this Google map search for holiday rentals is still work in progress and more fine tuning can be expected. If it proves popular with holiday makers, and that is likely, the big OTA's will not be happy!
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

I agree with AndrewH, if I am looking for somewhere to go on holiday I look around in the area I am interested in to see whats around and if accommodation pops up I may well have a closer look. As you say it's early days yet so lets see what develops.
manesty
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Post by manesty »

Bumping this thread. I wondered if anyone had any further insight into this? When I search on google, or google maps, for holiday cottages *rural location* or *rural location* holiday cottages I get a map with little blue dots. In our immediate area it first of all centres in our local town, 5 miles away, and then when I move it closer to us the majority of the dots are actually hotels, some are hostels and one is a cafe(!). I don't think I have yet found a cottage! Slightly further afield are some blue dots which are holiday cottages.

If you zoom in further the typical google maps pins appear, us, under the heading Holiday Apartment Rental, our neighbours, under Self Catering Accommodation, and other nearby self catering accommodation under the same categories, some as hotel, and some with no category at all.

EDIT: I realise this sounds like I haven't read the rest of the thread! I have, just wanted to explain that I was still experiencing the same thing as previous posters found a white ago.

In comparison to this, back in the day, if you searched on google maps for holiday cottages in our location we would come near the top of the options on the map.

Has anyone had any further luck at getting a blue dot without closing their google my business listing? Ours originally was a google map listing but then got updated to a google my business listing. As we have a number of cottages in the same place and operate from on site we are comfortable falling under the sales/leasing office remit so do not feel like we are breaking any google my business rules. However, if this means no one can find us if they search on google then pfffft!

I have in the past used google maps to find my own holidays once I had decided where I wanted to go and I always found it pretty useful. Not so sure if it would be now.
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