Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Matt McGee Responds
I have put the following to a number of folks whose opinion I respect. Premise: The internet is coming face to face with the communities we live in. Local is at the nexus of this juncture. With the iPhone we now listen to our music, answer our phones, read our email, look at our maps …
Comparing Yahoo & Google Market Share in Local
Comparing market share and market share trends between Google Maps and the various Yahoo local properties is complicated by the fact (pointed out by Steve Espinosa) that Yahoo spreads their local traffic across three sites: Yahoo Local, Yahoo Maps and Yahoo Yellow Pages, To clarify I once again went back to the well and asked …
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Bill Slawski Responds
Bill Slawski of SeobytheSea brings a deep understanding of the underlying techniques that Google & Yahoo have developed to assemble their local data. Here is his answer to whether Local needs to be held to a higher standard: Bill: I’m not sure that local can succeed without the actual involvement of people on a local …
Google Maps Record Failure Update- Health Improving
In late February I reported on a Maps Record failure with a medical listing where the record had been conflated with another physician and it turns out with a hospital as well (image of physician mixup / image of hospital-dr. mix up). I reported the problem to the Google Groups for Business forum. The problem …
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Miriam Ellis Responds
Miriam Ellis and her husband are a web development team in California with extensive practical experience in Local Search. She is always a voice for reason and ethical behavior and writes frequently about local search in her blog. Miriam understands the frustration of running a small business and often speaks of the needs of small …
Local Business Center upgrade now allows Plus Box control
In a quiet upgrade to the Local Business Center, Google has provided business owners with the option of using their entered address as the source for information for the Plus Box found in the main search results. The problem with errors and frustation with the complexities in fixing them had been noted here and at …
Making Local Appointments on line
Last week I reported on the new service, Leavefeedback.org that elegantly closes the circle of consumers and small businesses. The New York Times reports on a new class of small business products that further brings local and smb’s together: Making Appointments for Doctor or Dinner that further embeds the internet in the lives of clients …
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Ahmed Farooq Responds
Given the recent reports (A New Scourge For Yahoo: Affiliate Mapspam) of mapspam at Yahoo that I perceived as possibly criminal, several folks responded that I had overreacted or mischaracterized the event. I started thinking about the legal, social and technical context for Local in our lives and whether if we didn’t hold it to …
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Danny Sullivan and Chris Silver Smith Respond
I have been thinking about Yahoo lately (big surprise that eh?) and have been mulling over in my head what is what in the world of Local. Thinking that I needed some more voices to compliment what is rattling around in my brain I wanted to hear what others had to say. I sent the …
Local Links of Interest
SPY CELLS: Phones Will Soon Tell Where You Are – AMOL SHARMA and JESSICA E. VASCELLARO, WSJ Would you want other people to know, all day long, exactly where you are, right down to the street corner or restaurant?…..wireless carriers are betting that many of their customers do, and they’re rolling out services to make …
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