What Will Become Of Old Custom Categories?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Gang,
I hope I didn't miss a previous discussion of this in all of the avalanche of news regarding the new Places for Business dash. Riffing on Colan's post about the possible loss of the poke, (see:http://localsearchforum.catalystema.../5828-will-poke-die-old-places-dashboard.html) I find myself wondering what will happen to old custom categories in the new system, which accepts pre-set categories only. What will happen to old listings that made use of the old custom category system? Will the categories disappear from the listings? Anyone seen anything on this?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Miriam,

I've been wondering the same thing. This issue may have been brought up in passing in some thread somewhere, but there aren't any threads dedicated to this issue, so thanks!!

I really have no idea what will happen to pre-existing custom categories.

There is some good comments over at Mike's blog, and I just posed the question over there - Categories in the new Places for Business Dashboard | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

 

[djbaxter]

Just as a general comment, if you scroll down past the end of any thread you'll see a section titled "Similar Threads" with links to threads on the forum with similar titles or content.

It's far from perfect but it is one more way of locating information here.

 

[Michael Cordova]

We have not yet been upgraded to the new dash, but I have noticed that one of our custom cats G chooses to display has changed from "car accident attorney" to "legal services". The other cat that has not changed is "personal injury attorney", which is still considered a new default cat.

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Colan,
Good idea to ask Mike. I'll quote his response here:

The only thing we know for sure is that Google no longer wants them going forward.

We have seen over the past few months, the disappearance of categories off a limited number of merged listings.
That could have been a test of some sort of removal process, who knows.
Obviously at some level Google has the capacity to store and index these.
The question is whether they contribute to higher quality results from Google?s POV. if they do then they will stay, if not they are toast.

Thanks for thinking of doing that Colan. I guess there are unknowns here. We'll just have to see.

David, thanks for the UX tip! I've notice that in the past, but had forgotten about it.