Comments on: Google LBC Dashboard: Impressions of Impressions and Actions

By: Local Search, 10-Pack, National Brands, SEO Strategy |

Local Search, 10-Pack, National Brands, SEO Strategy | — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:19:19 +0000

[...] nuance is the value of a #1 organic ranking compared to being in the 10-pack (since the 10-pack appears above the #1 ranking). It looks like what used to be assumed was a [...]

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:47:48 +0000

This must be a quirk or a miss by Google. In one of our dashboard accts 4 of the top ten phrases show a related business term, but include the inititials of the state in which the business is located.

In 3 cases the initials are at the end of the phrase and in one case the initials are at the beginning of the phrase. Meanwhile I note where 2 potential higher ranking phrases w/ the state initials and the most relevant business phrase are clearly not showing…with that business phrase showing lots of impressions….but of course no breakdown.

I suppose its a small mistake in Google’s aggregating this data and sending it out to people w/ an lbc claimed listing.

The “non geographic” context of this tool is not foolproof at this time.

By: Google Local Business Center: Why your impressions might drop to 0% | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:03:38 +0000

[...] crops up in the forums is why would your Local Business Center dashboard all of a sudden show 0 impressions for your business listing in Google [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:45:30 +0000

Dave, you hopeless romantic you.

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:43:39 +0000

Mike:

I had one LBC account that wasn’t showing impressions. Yesterday it started to show impressions dating back one week. All along it had shown actions. (wierd, eh?) I had noticed on twitter that Joel H from Google Maps referenced an update with the dashboard.

Bravo. One small step for Google…one small step for dashboard followers.

I still think it is a medium to poor quality statistical picture of actions and effectiveness with regard to one’s website.

Of note, I will say that one thing it doesn’t measure, nor do other web analytics are calls to a business based on visibility within Maps, and specifically within the map insert into Google.com.

Of course if you utilize a tracking phone number in conjunction with the maps record then you have a terrific tracking tool. Without that though, I notice when maps rankings for a site improves, we both get more visits to the site for subject phrases and we do generate more phone calls–even without a tracking number.

kudo’s to Google for the update. Now if only they could provide some CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:30:37 +0000

@Ric
Thanks for providing info as to the on the ground reality in Australia. I, as you know, take a critical look at Google as well. In this case, I think the dashboard is a carrot in their effort to encourage smb’s to claim their records. Claiming adds a level of security to the system and limits to some extent abuses. It also gives Google someone to kick out for bad behavior. They claim to be working on developing tools that will “innoculate” local from these abuses but it has yet to clearly be functioning here or in Australia.

Time will tell if they are on the right track and have the right priorities. Clearly a lot needs to be done to make Local work.

By: Ric Rafttis

Ric Rafttis — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:25:55 +0000

Whilst it’s great that Google are adding more features, I think they are jumping the gun.

The local search is just a complete shambles, certainly here in Australia anyway. For example, you can’t search “web design ….. ” now and get a full listing. At one stage they removed “security …. ” as a category and now it’s back again though.

But the biggest issue is the gaming of the local search engine. I set up one client for local search and he couldn’t understand why his opposition had eight listings in the local search area. It was simply because the business had listed “all suburbs” and one suburb as the address. This is so blatant it’s almost more transparent than adding text full of keywords to a page in the same color as the background, yet there are heaps of examples of the same thing.

So Google, go to it with the bells and whistles by all means, but make the search returns better for a start!

Cheers,

Ric

By: harold

harold — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:54:15 +0000

Great, thanx. I will look into it further.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:47:16 +0000

@Harold

There surely is.

Mike

By: harold

harold — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:42:49 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Mike. On the positive side, it is free and there is nothing to lose. So I am still pleased with the fact that I’m in there already. And I failed to mention I get tons of phone calls. There must be a lot of people not even clicking on the site link – which seems unusual. I find all this so interesting to follow and figure out.

I have had quite a few people ask me about helping them do what I did with Google Local. I would like to help, but can’t stop to invest the time to help everyone due to the cost of time. In your opinion, is there a viable business concept for just helping small business with all the facets of Google Local? Wouldn’t want to get involved in major across-the-board SEO. Would like to simply focus on SEO for Google Local. Maybe adding other local search options. Would such a business model be too thin?

Your expert opinion would be much appreciated.

Thanks