It appears in addition to changing the placement of Google Places listings, Google also changed its ranking algorithm. Here’s an excerpt that was reported to me by an associate: So Google changed the format of the Google Places listings – but what about the order (ranking)? Did Google change the ranking algorithm too? You bet your bottom dollar they did!!! In the last Q&A session, someone mentioned that Google was placing a higher value on the URL of the business owner. To see if that was the case for my clients, I asked the account reps for 5 of my clients to give me a before & after picture (you can see the results below). The numbers came in – but what does it mean? Here is what I am seeing:

• Before the change, it didn’t really matter if the business had a website. Now the website SEO ranking seems to determine the Google Places ranking.
• Sites that ranked low in the old Google Places were catapulted to the first page via the new Google Places listings – IF the business’ web site was ranking high in the organic results previous to the change.
• Sites that ranked high in the old Google Places have “disappeared” if they did not have a website. They are still showing in Google Places – if you click on the map – but they are not showing in the first few pages of the Google Places results.

Don’t panic! If you were building citations/reviews on the Google Places listing and backlinks to the site then you are going to be fine. If not – if you’d only been concentrating on the Google Places listing then you need to adjust your strategy to include a web site!