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The latest new clarification to the Google Places guidelines is that your listings page cannot contain any URLs that redirect to other URLs.
Jade Wang, Google Maps support representative, added the clarification to the Google Business Help forums yesterday explaining that while redirects are not allowed, tracking parameters are.
Jade said:
We do not allow URLs that allow redirection, though adding tracking parameters to your regular URL for the business or the business location is allowed.
The examples she gave are:
- Not Allowed: Walmart.stor.es/
which later direct user to http://www.walmart.com. - Allowed: http://www.walmart.com/
This new clarification comes after two other clarifications including:
- Practitioners & Departments Get Special Google Maps Listing Guidelines
- Google Updates Maps Review Spam Algorithms
Forum discussion at Google Business Help.
Comments:
Dallas McMillan
03/13/2013 12:56 pm
What about goo.gl shorteners?
Sav Szymura
03/13/2013 01:12 pm
Can't or won't?
Chris McCreery
03/13/2013 01:18 pm
If adding tracking parameters will the extra long url appear on the listing or will they hide those variables?
Andrew Sawyer
03/13/2013 01:40 pm
Google shorteners are redirects so they aren't permitted and its a 3rd party site to the actual URL. So it is bad on 2 fronts.
Spencer Padway
03/13/2013 02:48 pm
They will hide it, Google maps and local+ listings strip it down to just the root.
Jawad Latif
03/14/2013 11:06 am
This makes sense.