Last night Jade Wang from Google announced that there were new updates to editing your Google+ local listing. The general changes include a status bar that informs you if your edits were accepted or rejected and informs you if you have completely filled our all of your business information.
I also noticed that you are now able to edit your hours down to the minute. This works great if you are a 24/hour business which was previously unavailable in the old Google Places as well.
Lastly you can now add categories within Google Local. This was previously only available when using Google Places (google.com/local/add). However, there is no longer an ability to add custom categories. If you are unable to match your business to one of Google’s preloaded categories then you must choose the closest category possible. If Google does not update this hopefully they will more heavily weigh text used for the description of the business in their local algorithm.
Overall the look and feel is much better on this new layout, but as with any new Google product there are still some kinks that need to be worked out. It appears the using Google Places to claim your listing will soon be completely phased out.
By Jeff Pucko