How do they do it and how much does someone pay to get their name/business to show up on Google maps when a random googler is navigating to an entirely unrelated destination?
Did you search for them at some point? In my experience you have both random stuff popping up and past searches hits. I suspect the absolute random stuff ro be related to advertising.
The squares with rounded edges are definitely ads.
I suspected so much but in my case those were absolutely unrelated to me unless the ads criteria was basically “human living 20km around city X”… which would be quite stupid to spend on to advertise one’s business.
A squircle.
I agree, but it’s also targeted I think. It won’t pop up for everyone.
Better then when the business won’t show up on maps, unless you type the name in. There are a ton of businesses that even if I zoom all the way in on that business it will not show the name of the business. But if I type the name in it will show in the correct place. It’s annoying as hell. I know there is a certain business there. I can see the building in maps. I just can’t remember the exact name. I need the phone number to know if they have a part or an item. Have never been able to figure out why Google maps and Apple maps does this crazy stuff.
It makes me absolutely hate Google for this.
I typed in Indian food, and it doesn’t show the one in my neighborhood with 200 five star reviews until I search for it by name or zoom in all the way.
How many other restaurants are getting fucked over?
It’s a pay to show thing, also probably tiers to be in higher levels that show like in op post
Because they get paid by some businesses for exposure, and not by others.
I have a business registered on Google Maps as an actual place, and frequently get contacted by email asking if I’d like to pay to have it promoted
I’ve never used it but the option is there
I was getting so many spam calls I took my phone number off my Google business profile. I make custom stuff and only locally. All by word of mouth. People still found me but it was a hassle for other businesses who would get calls looking for my number. So I wrote my number on a piece of paper and posted the picture on my profile. It’s like a “prove you’re not a robot” test.
Square icons are ads
Is there any way of disabling them? They’ve been absolutely cluttering up my navigation lately.
I’ve tried switching to organic maps, but a lot of stuff won’t show up in search.
TIL
Those are indeed ads.
I believe the business pays per click. I’ve seen (edit) only one estimate for the cost, claiming $2 to $6 per click. (https://www.shopify.com/retail/google-maps-ads)
(I previously had mentioned a second estimate but that was for regular ads)
Thank you for the insight. But wait a minute, who pays $2 to $6 per click? She pays Google that much every time someone clicks on her? Seems to me that licensed clinical social worker who put her name on Google maps would have to pay a lot for that.
(LOL Your username)
it depends on your average CPA. If a converting customer has an avg LTV of $2000, it’s reasonable to have a CPA of $1000, then working back from that at a CPC of $6 you’d need 166 unique sessions for a conversion, or a 0.6% conv rate - seems achievable.
We don’t know how much she pays, but yeah. It’s quite likely she does pay that much (and it may or may not pay off - if she gets one extra long term customer paying $100 per session, every week, for a year, that easily pays for a couple hundred clicks that go nowhere. OTOH the 99% of people who don’t need a LSCW but click the pin just to figure out what it is, why it shows up on the map, or what the acronym stands for aren’t going to provide any benefit…).
Ads/Marketing/customer acquisition are unbelievably expensive (and thus also a huge business).
Yeesh. Ok now I guess I’m feeling bored & mischievous enough to hapazardly click these things over & over again 😆 like a reverse slot machine for whomever gets the monthly bill for such things
The ones that want your clicks are obviously advertisements.
But I see a lot that have nothing to do with clicks, and I think Google is just testing to see if it’s irrelevant location… Showing it to a small number of random people and seeing if they click on it.
It’s probably because you are zoomed in enough
