You probably know by now that Google launched a new-look Place Page yesterday. The major changes, as I wrote on Search Engine Land, are a heavy emphasis on Google’s self-sourced reviews and the elimination of citations/references from displaying on Places Pages. Say what?!? No more citations on Place Pages? Yes … but don’t let anyone convince you that citations, or local SEO in general, are dead. Here’s why:

1.) Citations may not be visible, but they surely still matter.

Don’t forget the three pieces of the Google local rankings algorithm: location, relevance, and prominence. Those are straight from Google, not something us consultants have made up.

Citations are still a primary way Google learns about a local business’ location. Citations also impact prominence: the more citations, the more prominent the business .

2.) It’s like what Google has already done with links.

If we all agree that citations are the local version of links, and we do all agree on that, then think back a few years for some precedence: Google killed the LINK: search command so that people couldn’t see a page’s inbound links. But that didn’t mean that links were less important to ranking. Many would argue that links are more important to rankings today than ever.

Likewise, I couldn’t imagine that citations/references are suddenly meaningless in the local algorithm. If they’re less important today — and that’s a debate we should have sometime — don’t blame the fact that they don’t appear on Place Pages now. Blame the introduction of “blended” local results that Google launched last October. Regular, on-page SEO became much more important with that change, quite possibly slightly minimizing the impact of citations at the same time.

3.) Local SEO is about more than citations.

No matter how important citations are, there’s a lot more involved in Google maps optimization and local SEO, in general. Consistent NAP data , correct categorization in local business listings, solid on-page SEO — these are all extremely important today, and will be tomorrow, too.

With citations now gone from Place Pages, it’ll be a bit harder to reverse engineer a competitor’s citations and web references. Now, you pretty much have to rely on tools to do this for you. I’d still recommend Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder — see my write-up of it from last summer for more details about how it works. I checked with Darren Shaw today and he says that Google’s Place Page changes have no impact on the tool’s ability to identify local citations.

Google’s decision to minimize third-party reviews also makes it a little harder to find all the sites where competitors might be getting exposure, but as with citations, this doesn’t mean reviews are any less important. It’s still smart to encourage your customers to say good things about you on whatever site they like to us — Twitter, Facebook, Trip Advisor, Urban Spoon, Avvo … wherever!

Similar Posts:

• 10 Likely Elements of Google’s Local Search Algorithm
• One Local Search Ranking Factor I Disagree With
• Google’s Confusing Change on Reviews
• Is Google Giving Mixed Signals on AdWords Helping SEO?
• Google Places Isn’t Testing New Layouts … Get Used to Variety