Google's Big Risk with Reviews: Using a 30-Point Scale

[Google Places Blogger]

By getting rid of the traditional five-star scale and implementing a 30-point scoring system, Google now has to explain to all users — business owners, their customers, everyone — how the new rating system works.



For folks who live and breathe local search and reviews, it may not seem like a big deal. But I’d argue that, to the Average Jane, it’s going to be a huge point of friction.

See it on Scoop.it, via Google Places Optimization & Local SEO News



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[djbaxter]

I honestly cannot believe the continuing mess Google is making of local search. They seem to go from one bad decision to another. They try to fix something with a change that seems so hair-brained you know at the outset it's going to create more problems than it solves. And the fact that they keep changing the rules means that in the end most of us are simply confused.

Really? A 30-point scale? You'd think with all the Ph.D.s Google has, someone would have bothered to look at some of the large body of research on rating scales. 5 is good. 7 is good. 10 is doable. even 100 (i.e., percent) is doable. A 30 point scale offers zero advantages and muddies the waters for everyone who has to use it. Where's that thumbs down smiley when you need it?

This reminds me of some of the boneheaded decisions made by some other prominent IT corporations in recent years, RIM and Nortel being good examples. But we don't usually associate Google with boneheaded moves.

Something is painfully wrong either with the concept or with the team they have in place trying to implement the concept.

Time for a new broom?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Can't agree with you more David. Google's decisions don?t even seem logical sometimes when it comes to local.

I think part of the problem too is local for Google is fractured into different departments that each do things their own way with different rules. There is Maps, MapMaker (the editing interface for maps), Google+ (behind the Zagat decision) and the world I live in - Google Places (Which someone renamed to Google+Local EVEN THOUGH there is already another product in a diff division called Local Google+. It's like they are all in their own little world and don't communicate well. Some are from Mars and some are from Venus.