Google Archive

Hey everyone, I’m currently presenting at Expon Brasil & haven’t had a great chance to keep up with all the coverage.  Wanted to include some quick thoughts while I have internet access.  I’ll follow-up with a full post later today or tomorrow. 1) If you didn’t see this coming, you haven’t been paying attention. 2) [...]

Awhile back, I passed along the news that Google was spot-checking business owner information telephonically. As I said at the time, I love the fact that Google is trying to improve the quality of business data, but over the phone remains a bad mechanism for accomplishing this goal, in my opinion. Why?  It’s becoming impossible [...]

Hat tip to Linda Buquet of Catalyst Local Marketing for being the first to spot the Austin and Portland versions below, and thus the first to publicize the overall concept. Google has just released city-specific business directories that are clearly going to compete with Yelp, Citysearch, and all the other IYPs in terms of highlighting [...]

Well, it’s hard to believe this is already the fourth time I’ve had the privilege to compile the opinions of the world’s top experts in Local Search Marketing. My initial comments about the results of the 2011 Local Search Ranking Factors survey follow below.

…Is this place still here?

Some thoughts on the triggers for Google’s latest attempt to crowdsource underlying business data, and what the implications are for the local search industry.

As I found out from a Twitter conversation last week, I apparently neglected to share with people that I’m traveling in sunny England–it’s rained exactly twice since April 1–through the beginning of June. As a result, it’s been almost a full month since I last checked my feedreader and I was finally able to plow through it this morning. There have obviously been some pretty key developments to keep an eye on if you’re in the Local Search space.

Remember Local Listing Ads? You know, the ones Google released way back in October 2009 when lots of you were at SMX East?

Well, they’re back. Only this time, they’re available through the ADWORDS interface rather than the Places interface.

Last month I highlighted a few of the on-the-ground efforts Google’s been making here in Portland, and I thought it was about time that I do a follow-up, now that the campaign has been underway for a significant amount of time.

I’ve just returned to the beautiful City of Roses after a fantastic packed-house AZIMA event in Scottsdale last night. Google is continuing its HotPot marketing blitz in our fair city via kiosks at PDX Airport, though judging by the lack of activity around this one in particular, Portlanders seem pretty non-plussed about it so far.

Seems like everyone is talking about the New York Times story over the weekend about Vitaly Borker and his shortsighted PR strategy to garner a bunch of bad publicity, partly in order to rank at Google.

Everyone from Danny Sullivan to Jessica Lee to Greg Sterling to Google itself has weighed in on the controversy.

Thing is, Local Search experts have long speculated that the valence of reviews has had an extremely low, if any, impact on rankings, whereas the volume of reviews has always been considered one of the strongest factors.