“PlaceRank” is named after “PageRank,“ Google’s original ranking algorithm, and it is the process by which Google collects information about all sorts of local places, and then interprets that information to generate ranking scores for each place.
A large portion of the PlaceRank algorithm is specific to a business itself, analyzing things like whether there are photos and videos about a business location, how many people view those photos and videos, how many people view the business profile “Place Page” — recently replaced by the Google+ Local pages — how many times driving directions are requested to the location, how many reviews are written and how influential the reviewers are, and so on..
See it on Scoop.it, via Google Places Optimization & Local SEO News
More...
