Comments on: Google Maps Category Mystery Part 3: Solved?

By: Google Local Business Center Categories – The Complete List | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:05:08 +0000

[...] of the limited categories offered in the LBC, Google would use those to supplant any that had been provided by the Superpages. So the upshot during that timeframe, was that you had to remove ALL categories from the LBC to get [...]

By: Pratish

Pratish — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:11:03 +0000

Thanks Mike for proving the tricks for getting listed in the same directory as someone’s competitor. I will share it with one of my friend who is running an SEO company who want to get listed in the same directory of his competitors from his place.

By: SuperPages: A Case Study : Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Consulting | Spokane, WA | Sixth Man Marketing

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:37:24 +0000

[...] in their determination of category around the time of SMX Santa Clara. Mike Blumenthal has a great write-up on this, including a quote from a Superpages resource saying “Perhaps they only accept [...]

By: Sphinn & The Hidden Value of Social News Bookmarking Immersion » aimClear Search Marketing Blog

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:34:08 +0000

[...] the changes are more subtle. “Google Maps Category Mystery Part 3: Solved?” became ” Daunting Secrets of Google Map Categories Finally Revealed! “Selling [...]

By: February ‘08: Best Search/Marketing Posts » Small Business SEM

February ‘08: Best Search/Marketing Posts » Small Business SEM — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:54:10 +0000

[...] Mike/Understanding Google Maps…: Google Maps Category Mystery Part 3: Solved? [...]

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:57:46 +0000

Hi Martin If you saw the interview with Google's Maslan that there are multiple influence's on the category. I think that my chart really only shows the top level obvious influences and is accurate as far as it goes....thus other sources for "signals" are incredibly likely. And being in DMOZ could do no harm. Obviously if the Superpages doesn't exist in a given country that Google would use a different yellopage/data provider for the start up seeding categorization. In my gut, KLM files are one of the signal sources as it verifies both business info and geolocation. I don't have any proof of that but it makes tons of sense to me. Mike

By: martijn

martijn — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:20:16 +0000

@me, remark at #1, I’m aware of the florist episode. Still, I wouldn’t be too amazed if Google would use data from Adwords as input for their organic (or maps) search for other purposes.

By: martijn

martijn — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:32:56 +0000

I’ve been reading all parts on this category mystery. I was into research on this topic. The results are very clarifying.

Still, is there any research/results on the following:

#1 influence of sponsored links (Adwords Google Maps listing) on categories.
#2 Influence of DMOZ (www.google.com/Top/ ) as provider of categorization
#3 results from the yellow pages on each country. Google publicly lists it in the Google Maps Search results. Do they use their categorization? (3rd party providers as Jen is talking about?..)
#4 User-Generated Content ( .kml files included in sitemap..) and ranking (to get your results up in the Local 10 Onebox).

Been keen for any results and research done.
What do you think mike?

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:57:36 +0000

Hi Jeanette

We need to stop meeting like this

I hope that I have made their job easier….it will take some time for the info to spread but at least for the short haul it will help.

Mike

By: jeannette

jeannette — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:07:31 +0000

Sounds like you are making a lot of small business owners very happy. Good luck.
A psychic in Santa Fe?