Google has been under a lot of pressure from governments lately.
One change they’ve made recently, probably in response, is to stop “stealing” reviews.
For some time now, Google Places (the map/ local listings) has shown content from review sites such as Yelp, Demand Force and others, as though it were their own.
This led to complaints on the part of some of these sites that Google was stealing their content, thus making it unnecessary for someone to visit their site.
That is no longer the case. Google now shows links to these sites and the number of reviews, but the only reviews it actually shows on the Place Page – and the only ratings – are those entered directly into Google.
These reviews are of great importance to Place Page optimization (getting your local listing to rank well), as well as to SEO in general (since Place Page ranking strongly affects the rankings of combined local and organic listings).
Add this into the mix. This is a huge positive in getting your listings clicked on – actual quoted positive reviews directly on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Any company that has been depending on third party review sites needs to get a strategy going, to get their happy customers to go onto Google to add reviews.
Just in case there is any question about it, this is HUGE for local search.