Understanding Google Places & Local Search – Developing Knowledge about Local Search

I somehow missed this FTC enforcement action when it was released at the end of August. The FTC used the blogging disclosure guidelines that it released at the end of 2009 to slap the hands of an advertising firm that had it’s employee post reviews on iTunes without full disclosure.

From the NY Times article:

The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that a California marketing company had settled charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by having its employees write and post positive reviews of clients’ games in the Apple iTunes Store, without disclosing that they were being paid to do so.

The charges were the first to be brought under a new set of guidelines for Internet endorsements that the agency introduced last year. The guidelines have often been described as rules for bloggers, but they also cover anyone writing reviews on Web sites or promoting products through Facebook or Twitter.

They are meant to impose on the Internet the same kind of truth-in-advertising principles that have long existed offline.

Last year, New York State settled a lawsuit against a Plastic Surgeon over false reviews but this is the first instance that I know of where the Federal Government has intervened in the review world. It is one thing to annoy the historically aggressive attorney generals of New York and another to put into motion the federal government looking at review spam. Clearly, this effort was targeted at ad agencies:

“We hope that this case will show advertisers that they have to be transparent in their practices and help guide other ad agencies,” said Stacey Ferguson, a lawyer in the advertising practices division of the trade commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

That being said it should throw up a warning flag to any company doing the same. Too see an excellent example of the type of review spam that is becoming fairly common in Google Maps, see this article by Miriam Ellis. The article was written prior to the FTC ruling and Miriam asked the basic question of what would the FTC do in such situations. Now we have more than inkling of their direction.

Some other articles about the ruling:
MarketPlace: New FTC guidelines apply truth-in-advertising principles to online reviews
Citizen Media Law Project: FTC Flexes Blogger Rules Again

Update 9/10: Matt Mcgee reports on Searchengineland that Google has returned the philosophy page back to its original wording and disagrees with the assessment that they are a portal. I would note that regardless of the content of their philosophy page or any denials, if it walks like a duck….. etc. etc. etc., it is still a duck and while they may or may not be a portal, they are in fact directly a great deal of traffic internally.

Eric Goldman highlights a recent and interesting “philisopical change” on the part of Google. One that confirms recent history and codifies their new(ish) behavior:

Google maintains a page entitled “Our Philosophy: Ten Things We Know to Be True.”

On June 3, 2004 (per archive.org), the page said “Google may be the only company in the world whose stated goal is to have users leave its website as quickly as possible.” (emphasis added)

On September 6, 2010, that same line now reads “We may be the only people in the world who can say our goal is to have people leave our homepage as quickly as possible.” (emphasis added)

Since the separation of business listings from Maps into a stand alone Places pages, Google has steadily and regularly added new “features” that direct users laterally back into Google rather than to a business’s website. Nearly every recent Maps/Local development (Buzz, Nearby Places, Tags, OneBox Enhancement) have all, in one way or another kept traffic inside of Maps instead of sending it to another website.

Google has always contended that their #1 guiding principal is to “focus on end user“.

I would contend though, that Google, in that focus, is not immune from the immutable laws of capital accumulation. Google, like all companies, either needs to accumulate capital at a greater rate than other companies or capital will move away from them.

Google’s main (and very successful historical) way to accumulate this capital has been to show ever more ads. Obviously there are a limited number of ways to show more ads. In the past, Google has relied on increasing numbers of users. If this can’t be accomplished with more unique traffic than it needs to be accomplished with more page views.

I think going forward, virtually every change you will see to Maps/Places will continue this recent trend of driving more pageviews to Google itself.

Does this make Google evil? No, it makes Google a capitalist. That being said, perhaps truth in advertising should require them to change their “focus on the user” mantra to read “focus on the user AND do what is good for Google”.

Google has acknowledged their intent to keep folks at Google. Now they need to acknowledge “the rest of the story”.

Last week, I joined the internet revolution as our household finally moved off of dial up and received DSL from Verizon. It was a long time coming and a path full of Verizon delays, but as a result I have been spending more time in the Google Places forums. This is an activity that never ceases to uh…. amaze.

Google Places has improved dramatically over the past 24 months but like all “good code” it still has its significant share of quirks, bugs and edge cases….

Here are some cases that have shown up recently in the forums:

The LASIK Surgeon caught in an infinite loop of frustration. This fellow, when he chooses the Google defined category of LASIK Surgeon is told that he is guilty of excessive capitalization and is not allowed to even verify. My suggestion: change businesses.

The Insurance Agent that is caught in a time warp. His listing is correct in his LBC account, it is correct when viewed as a OneBox but his Places Page shows him as only open on Saturdays. Lazy bum…get to work.

The Architect that happens to have a business located on an “improperly” named street. His business is located on Dyke Lane and when attempting to claim his listing, it is flagged for the use of inappropriate language. And folks complain about Apple’s over aggressive sense of propriety. The solution: get a PO Box.

The town of Sunrise Fl. These folks have been lost by Google Maps on more than one occasion. If you search for a business in Sunrise Fl which is near Ft. Lauderdale, Google directs you to businesses on the opposite coast. Google has indicated that it could be up to 2 months for Sunrise to be found. Hmm… they always say its darkest just before the dawn.

As a long time participant in the forums and having to apologize more than being able to fix, these cases demonstrate
1) that, after 6 years, Google Maps is still very much a work in progress.
2)that is likely to be the case for a good time to come and thus…
3) that Google, while waiting to offer a world wide software fix that solves all of these problems and more, really, really, needs some staff in the forums.

Google Instant, Google’s new predictive search result product, is being widely hyped…the end of SEO, not the end of SEO… While it is unlikely to be apocoplytic and end SEO as we know it, it does seems destined to change searcher behavior. That change is likely to affect SEO tactics in general and local SEO in particular.

Will the searcher stop sooner in the search? Will the searcher choose from the drop down or from the main results? Will they continue with their initial search phrase?

Imagine a client that is getting good search traffic on a long tail search “Orlando criminal defense attorney“. Note that Moses and Rooth Attorneys at Law  is F in Local and #2 organically.

Now though lets try it as a user would experience the search with Google Instant. As the use gets to the “n” in typing “orlando crimin” there appears a relevant search results (#2, again Moses and Rooth) AND a relevant drop down, orlando criminal attorney but no 7 Pack:

At this point, it seems unlikely that the searcher will continue typing out their original query. What they will do is unclear. They may just choose the website and visit it or see the phone and call. If they choose Orlando Criminal Attorney from the drop down, where they will see a 7 Pack that provides different results than the original long tail search. Regardless, it seems unlikely that the user will make it to the long tail search with which they started.

It seems clear that SEO is not dead. It does seem likely that searcher behavior will change and SEO will need to change with it.
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What do a popular Anaheim florist, a prominent law office in a large urban area, a rural web development firm and a large retail bank/atm location all have in common?

They all are in the Localeze index and yet Facebook Places does not know about their existence. Why this occurs and how many businesses are missing from FB Places isn’t totally clear. Given my experience, the phenomena is fairly widespread and affects some significant number of businesses in the U.S. in both rural and urban environments.

Indications are that Localeze has provided Facebook with a full data set of their index so they seem to be off the hook. Either Facebook has chosen to surface some businesses and not others or more likely, they are still struggling with the technology to match a mobile user with the many Places that are in a mobile user’s immediate vicinity.

Regardless it means that every business needs to get their hands on a mobile phone and verify whether Facebook finds your Place and if not struggle through the mobile interface to add your Facebook Place page.

I am trying to understand why this is happening so if you have insight into either Facebook’s technology, their policies, or  the limits and difficulties of coding for check-ins and can shed light on this phenomena, I would love to hear from you.