Joy Hawkins has published another local SEO case study, this one on whether reviews left by Local Guides do better than any ordinary reviewer on Google. The answer is yes; reviews left by Local Guides seem to do better and last longer than other reviews.
Google Local Guides are a global community of explorers who write reviews, share photos, answer questions, add or edit places, and check facts on Google Maps. Anyone can sign up to be a Local Guide, and you can earn points and such for leaving reviews and photos and the like. Learn more about this over here.
Joy's case study showed these three points:
(1) Reviews from Local Guides stayed at the top of a Google local listing longer.
(2) Reviews left by users with a profile picture did stay a the top of a listing longer.
(3) There was no correlation between people who actively left reviews for other businesses or who uploaded lots of photos and their reviews staying at the top longer.
You can read the full case study over here.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
