Comments on: The road to Google Maps Nirvhana is paved with good intentions

By: Local Search and Website Copyrights | The Musings of Nicholas Reese

Local Search and Website Copyrights | The Musings of Nicholas Reese — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:19:17 +0000

[...] words as truth this points to Google Algorithm. Mike Bluementhal has outlined several times how Google has been attributing the wrong URL to business. These examples point out that Google [...]

By: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search » Google Maps and the wrong URL | Developing Knowledge about Local Search

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:30:23 +0000

[...] have written about this problem in the “archeological” past (here and here) and noted that this assignment of URL’s was an artifact of an over aggressive Google [...]

By: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search » Google’s forced choice for the Authoritative Website

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:56:20 +0000

[...] The method leads to a mostly accurate Google Maps database in regard to which website is associated with which business. However, when Google makes an error in this assignment of the website, it can be a doozy. I have written about my experience here: The road to Google Maps Nirvhana is paved with good intentions and recently there was this post Competitor Hijacks Google Local Business Listing?. It is easy to see why people in the industry think that there is skullduggery afoot. [...]

By: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local » Beware: Competitor Hijacks Google Local Business Listing? Maybe, Maybe Not!

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:33:05 +0000

[...] I have seen and written about this happening before (see Redemption in the Gilded Google Age and The road to Google Maps Nirvhana is paved with good intentions). I too, at first, assumed evil intent. Usually though, it is caused by Google’s attempt to establish an authoritative website when none has been specifically entered. Bill Slawski has written about Google’s patent on this area in his Authority Documents for Google Local Search. Google’s guesses are mostly pretty good but as you can see from my experience, when it goes wrong, it goes really wrong. In their defense they fixed it reasonably quickly. [...]

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 18:27:51 +0000

Reuben

Is your local listing title optimized for the word “Gazebos”? (see http://blumenthals.com/blog/?p=12)

Mike

By: Reuben Yau

Reuben Yau — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 18:15:42 +0000

Thanks for the comments. My client’s site is already localized and has a GLBC account (I’ve been doing this for a while on a number of sites).

The other thing I noticed is that the category for that site is Gazebo Builder which is taken from Acxiom’s database, but that category is not present within GLBC. FYI Acxiom is the database behind yellowpages etc.

It just struck me as a bit odd the way they treated this business compared to others (not just my client) in this area.

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:26:02 +0000

Reuben, essentially, Google thinks they (the onebox listing folks) are the ONLY "Gazebos" provider in Pittsburgh for a number of reasons: They have the word "Gazebos" in their name; It is likely that there is no category for this AND the site Google picked as the authoritative site (allpages.com) has a high page rank. So the whole outcome is determined by the algo on the organic side which as you can see "ain't so smart" sometimes.

In local, when there is no website (many businesses don't have them), Google will pick it's best guess as the authoritative site. In my example they picked a competitor. It was the comptetitor's site that led to the Onebox. When it was changed the favored listing was lost. In this case they picked "allpages.com" which clearly has a high pr score. (or whatever they are using here).

If you search on "pittsburgh gazebo" you see a more typical outcome.

If a client wants to be listed in the non-category they would probably need to add the word "Gazebos" to their title in the Google Local Business Center and/or as EarlPearl has suggested elsewhere optimize your site with "location + search phrase"

By: Reuben Yau

Reuben Yau — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:38:03 +0000

Mike, I just noticed something strange: If you search for [pittsburgh gazebos] you’ll find a business that has a onebox authoritative listing, but they don’t even have a website. This listing displays when searching for many smaller locations in and around pittsburgh, eventhough other companies are geographically closer to the search criteria.

Have you seen anything like this before?

By: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local » The prodigal son of a search engine comes home

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:20:54 +0000

[...] Onebox Authoritative Listing Map [...]

By: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local » Redemption in the Gilded Google Age

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:54:38 +0000

[...] In early October I wrote a post about achieving a “onebox” for a client on a valued search phrase (Vacation Rentals Ellicottville NY) BUT having the url Google had associated with the listing pointing to their competitor. After postulating conspiracies and incompetancies on the part of all but myself I determined that I had neglected to enter the client’s URL in the Local Business Center and Google, in its best guess, had made a not so harmless assumption. [...]