Mike Blumenthal

Local U Advanced is a great event; its collegial, casual, intimate and provides leading edge local marketing information. When you add New Orleans to that equation and the fact that it will be on Friday so you can spend the weekend in New Orleans it becomes even that much better. The agenda for the event …

I am a big supporter of free speech. I am though always a little suspicious when the likes of Yelp is its protector. Yelp is “actively defending” reviewers right to free speech with a new wave of consumer alerts placed on business listings. Yelp nukes by their own admission 25% of all reviews. Thus it would seem …

For the past several weeks Google seemed to have had its heart set on screwing up Knowledge Panel and Local Finder Business Photo display. That apparently was in anticpation of a new, more attracitve display of both images and interior views that is slowly rolling out. Spotted by Segey Alakov, a Toronto SEO, the new …

Update 7/20 Google has confirmed the new email verification feature. It would appear that Google is auto selecting the email address to which to send the verification email. This implies all of the things that an algo based trust solution would entail; scrapping of the email from the associated website, ideally at the same domain, …

First reported several days ago by 9 to 5 Google and highlighted again by Local SEO Brian Barwig on Twitter, Google is now showing average times spent at different businesses. It can report either a specific time or a range of times and only appears to be showing on businesses that have a lot of traffic. …

At GetFiveStars I have just published:    Yelp Implements Active Cleanup Alerts When a Business Hits the News – Tituss Burgess Vs Frank’s Express   (h/t to Local SEO Gerry Foster) Yelp has started implementing active monitoring of businesses that become the target of political reviews due to having their story go viral. While I think that …

Google has yet to make any announcements vis a vis providing business photos to the Knowledge Panel via Image Search rather than from the GMB and Google Maps. Whether the change is permanent or “just a test” we do not know. It is very widespread though and appears to be the new normal. Google’s new …

Google, never particularly transparent about how to get the photos that you want to show in your Knowledge Panel, seems to be throwing another curve ball to local businesses (h/t to Lance Moore at Uptick marketing in Birmingham and Destin). While the image that you chose as a profile photo might show, now when you …

Google Local Inventory Ads have been around for several years. They have traditionally appeared as ad units delivered in response to product searches. Nicolai Helling, a senior consultant at UDG United Digital Group, points out a new format, perhaps in testing, that embeds the inventory search function directly into the Knowledge Panel and Map listing …