Marketers, Consumers and Businesses can now see Google Traffic Results in Reviews

When Google Places was getting started, Google had included some great information for businesses to get a quick snapshot of local business traffic.  Now with a new name, Google My Business, it looks as if they have decided to test out that same traffic reporting, but flip it to the customer side in the search results. 

I'm speculating, and not sure how long this feature will be live, but occasionally you find Google beta testing results and this is the first I have seen the traffic feature.  

I was searching for the lunch menu at one of our go-to spots, Bean and Burgundy Bistro,  and you can see the traffic meter for Monday.  It's an interesting idea to publish this, but does it really make sense for a consumer to see this, and could it potentially hurt a business?  I definitely see it from both sides; the benefit to a business is showing that this business does more lunch search traffic than I would have expected.  The flip side, could a consumer feel that the dinner's aren't so impressive since the traffic isn't as strong? 

For a digital firm like ours, it's great to see what weaknesses the business has prior to calling them.  Enradius could design a custom plan to help drive their business searches in times when they aren't too strong.  This business in particular changed their name, and there are still local listings with the old name, and a number of inconsistencies in their search results. 

Another point of consideration is that a competitor could potentially get a little more insight to what the guy down the street is doing.

I have not checked to see if this traffic widget is a permanent fixture and plan to dive into it a little deeper.  Personally for me, the more data the better.  In this case, I'm not sure it's a true advantage for the business.