Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Searching for reviews
I am currently traveling with my family from Northern California to Oregon. We needed to book a hotel near the San Francsico airport the other night. My wife ended up booking us into the Best Western Grosvenor in South San Francisco. As we checked in, there was an obviously placed notice that that if we …
More Google MapSpam
Andrew Shotland has a recent report of SEO mapspam from a Vegas company called SEOChampion posting local listings for SEO services in his backyard. When he searched on Pleasanton SEO he found two spammy looking listings in the onebox. He drove to one address and discovered that the address doesn’t exist in Pleasanton. I did …
Yahoo Affiliate Mapspam now gone
During the last week of March, I reported at SearchEngineLand on Yahoo affiliate mapspam first reported by eClick. Perhpas more than 5% of the hotel listings in major markets, had url’s that moved through 2 or 3 affiilate urls prior to being redirected to the business listing in question. On March 25th, Yahoo’s Brian Gil, …
On vacation
I will be on vacation until April 21st and will only sporadically have internet and blog access. Enjoy the world of local while I am gone.
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Greg Sterling Responds
Greg Sterling of Screenwerks gets the last word (well other than mine of course) on the topic of whether Local needs to be held to a higher standard. Greg: Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Whether or not it should be in a sense it already is – by virtue of …
Maps Hybrid view misplaced (by me), not missing
I reported yesterday that new Maps terrain with contour view seemed to have supplanted the Hybrid view. The only thing missing was time for me to look around properly. Gregor Rothfuss of Google kindly pointed out how to find the not so missing hybrid view. Simply select the check box in the satellite view. Here …
Google Plus Box – for real
This week I wrote an April 1st post about an upgrade to the Local Business Center that apparently a lot of people wanted to be real. I wanted it to finally work as well but unfortunately it doesn’t. Here are my previous posts about the Plus Box issues: •How to change your Business Address in …
Major Affiliate Mapspam on Google for New York Hotels?
Updated These url’s have been removed and replaced with maps.google.com as the url. I would infer from this that it was in fact spam. Greg Sterling of Screenwerks has reported a possible affiliate mapspam incident on Google for the search New York Hotels. These listings look very similar to those noted by Matt McGee in …
Google Maps now offering contour lines – Hybrid view gone?
Updated 9:00 04/03/08 Gregor J. Rothfuss of Google.com notes that the Hybrid view is now moved under Satellite view. Click on it to see “Show labels†(the old Hybrid view). Frank Taylor, Google Earth Blog reported that New Contour Lines in Google Maps. Google has announced a new feature to the terrain relief maps they …
Local Links of Interest
UniversalBusinessListing.Org Partners with NexxLinx to Jump-Start Local Search UBL is the industry initiative to help businesses create and expand their online presence. Instead of spending countless frustrating hours of trial and error, businesses create a central listing with UBL, and for a small fee their information is securely distributed to all major US online Yellow …
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