January 30th, 2011 • Posted by Seth Gardenswartz • Permalink
Google is now ready to permanently mark your restaurant down
50%. Starting this month they are
displaying all of the Groupon deals run by local businesses in their search
engine results pages ("SERPs").
This is part of a larger change Google made in October, which makes Google's Places
data more prominently displayed as part of small business SERPs.
That data has included reviews from Yelp, CitySearch and TripAdvisor. Now
Google is showing your current and prospective clients the expired Groupon
deals offered by your business.
Let's count the ways this is bad for restaurants.
- If you are like 40% of restaurants you might want to forget about financial nightmare caused by your Groupon.
- You probably would like prospective clients to feel
good about your regular prices. Imagine the fun of talking your diner into a
full price meal when he can still see that you sold it for half price a week
ago.
- Finally, and
perhaps most maddening, when visitors click on the Groupon link the will see your expired Groupon and a prominent display of current Groupon deals FROM YOUR COMPETITORS!
So you did a little recreational Groupon a few months ago.
So what? Well now it's more like a bad tattoo than a simple hangover: it's out
there on Google forever. Add that to the real cost of doing a Groupon; it
leaves a mark!
