I was disappointed when Google created a new Places forum and they decided to take down the old Places forum and all of the posts that had accumulated. Google effectively minimized the efforts of the many volunteers that staffed the forums, removed material that still is of value and was deleting information that was of historical interest (to me anyways).
I was not able to gather them all but I wanted to make the posts I did save available for research purposes and to honor those volunteers that gave of their time to make the forums work (Barry Hunter, EHG aka Helmut, Treebles from the old timers and Linda Buquet, Nyagoslav, Jim from the new timers) I have archived those posts and am making them available on my website.
The Resurrected Posts from the Closed Google Places Forum
Places is constantly evolving. Many of the problems and solutions you find in these archives will be outdated. Be sure to search the new Google Places Forum for the most up-to-date info.
I was able to archive these posts with the help of Arjan Snaterse, Charlie Loyd and Aria Stewart.
[...] Read more about this story on Mike’s blog. [...]
Pingback by Google Places Help Forums Permanent Archive | Mihmorandum — March 19, 2012 @ 10:58 am
[...] to not archive it. Therefore, it was going to be completely gone. Here stepped Mike Blumenthal, who saved the day by pulling as many of the posts as possible. The old Google Places Help Forum (or at least the [...]
Pingback by Transition to A New Google Places Help Forum | OptiLocal — March 19, 2012 @ 11:53 am
Nice work, Mike. wonderful save.
Students are now studying Google Places. This is a resource for one and all. Well done.
Comment by Dave Oremland (37 comments) — March 19, 2012 @ 12:15 pm
So glad you did this Mike! What a great resource for the community!
Can’t tell you how many times a week as a TC I would need to look up a post from a month or 2 ago to research a problem or find an answer. That old forum is just filled with tons of valuable info.
Plus it’s so appreciated that you acknowledged the work of the volunteers who’ve given TONS of time and written long helpful posts. Nice for us all to know that our work was not in vein and our advice can live on to hopefully help others.
Off to Scoop this, Tweet it and 1+ it to help spread the word.
Thanks for all you do!
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — March 19, 2012 @ 1:09 pm
This was a brilliant idea Mike. Thank you so much for backing up the entire forum for the use of the Places community at large.
Comment by Dev Basu (24 comments) — March 19, 2012 @ 1:26 pm
This is a great resource I have been looking for for a while. Thank you all for your input, it is very helpful.
Comment by Eric Servance (1 comments) — March 19, 2012 @ 4:20 pm
[...] Archived Places Forum Posts, blumenthals.com [...]
Pingback by Marketing Day: March 19, 2012 — March 19, 2012 @ 5:11 pm
Mike, thanks for going to all that effort to back up the posts. I don’t use the GP forum all that often, but when I have, the posts/replies (many of them yours) have very much come in handy. Hats off for doing such a great (and time-intensive) thing for everyone in the big, motley GP community.
Comment by Phil Rozek (99 comments) — March 19, 2012 @ 10:32 pm
[...] Archived Places Forum Posts, Mike Blumenthal [...]
Pingback by SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 19, 2012 | tecBird — March 20, 2012 @ 12:55 am
[...] Fortunately Mike Blumenthal saved some of the old Google Places Forum posts on his website. [...]
Pingback by Google Places Forum Replaced, Valuable Knowledge Base Disappears | The Expand2Web Blog — March 20, 2012 @ 1:53 am
I used to refer to that forum often and there was a lot of valuable info in there. Thanks for saving what you could Mike, and for everything you do!
Comment by Don Campbell (25 comments) — March 20, 2012 @ 2:08 am
This is really a great move to place those sources – and your time it took you to do that – at our disposal!
Comment by Petra (7 comments) — March 20, 2012 @ 2:32 am
What an excellent work mike – thanks. Those old posts contain valuable information for many people.
Comment by Rasmus Himmelstrup (16 comments) — March 20, 2012 @ 3:46 am
[...] Mike Blumenthal, a Local Places expert, has archived a variety of this original data that is no longer available from Google, and has placed it on his Web site for historical reference. You can read more on his March 19, 2012 post “Archived Places Forum Posts”. [...]
Pingback by New Google Places Forum Released, Old Knowledge Base Gone — March 20, 2012 @ 11:57 am
[...] As I mentioned last week, the new Google Places forum is live. The OLD Google Places forum is re-directed and all the content is being removed, by Google. Mike Blumenthal, with a little help from his friends, was able to scrape the old forum to preserve years of knowledge and save it for posterity. Here is a link to the Closed Google Places Forum Archives. Here is a link to Mike’s post about it. Archived Places Forum Posts [...]
Pingback by Google Places Important Updates and News March 20 - Google Places Optimization and Local SEO Blog — March 20, 2012 @ 2:02 pm
Thanks for saving what you could of my 10,000+ posts in the 2+ years of that incarnation of the Places Help forum.
Comment by Andrew Huskinson (64 comments) — March 24, 2012 @ 7:19 pm
Excellent idea, Mike! Thanks for the help as always
Comment by Stans (8 comments) — April 11, 2012 @ 1:16 am