Mike Blumenthal

In early June, reports surfaced of a new beta program that allows a Local Business Center account’s bulk uploads to be whitelisted after approval by Google. Google has confirmed this program and estimates that it will be live in the Local Business Center in several months. Here a correspondence from last week with Carter Maslan, …

Google has scheduled two more rounds of downtime for the Local Business Center: Wednesday 8/5, 12-1pm PDT Monday 8/10, 10-11am PDT

If you grew up in the American school system like I did, you always wanted to know: How do I get a 100? Ever since Google introduced the Data Rich Dashboard in early June, this has been a frequent question on the minds of all that have frequented the Local Business Center and filled out …

Sometimes Google Maps just has a brain fart. Life will go along and all will be good with your listing. Then, for no apparent reason, it just forgets things. Not insignificant things like the year you opened or the special brand you carry but important things like your listing’s URL or its correct location on …

As part of a much larger campaign, Google is now serving up ads that promote Google Maps with a maplet that provides a guided video tour of  Maps functionality. The following ad was returned on the local search “Bradford Pa Restaurants”: When clicked the ad loads a Maplet (visible at this url) that provides a series …

Is Google replacing Title Tags on the main Google results page with Business names? I have a local client, Napoleon Engineering Services, that markets their custom bearing services nationally and into Canada. In the industry they often go by their “nickname” NES and are known as a high quality testing, inspection and manufacturing facility for …

In an agreement yesterday that portends significant change in local search marketing, New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo secured a $300,000 settlement with Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company that “flooded the internet with false positive reviews”. The press release claims that this is believed to be the first case in the nation against …

Yesterday I analyzed the rapid increase in postings to the Maps Help Forums. I was curious as to the specifics of why there had been such a large increase so I broke down last Thursday’s posting to get a sense of what was going on in the forums and what specific problems were being seen. …

Last week (July 4-10th) postings in the Maps Help Forums took a leap, hitting record highs for both single day totals and weekly totals. On Tuesday, July 7th, total postings in the three main forums for reporting problems totaled 173 postings versus the previous single day high of 112 postings. The weekly postings for the …

Land Grab: Google Expands Real Estate Listings. Matt McGee, SearchEngineLand. While this feature is new for Australia, it is only a minor change in real estate presentation in the US. To some extent, it is a lower profile for real estate than it has been over the past few years and it is still relatively …