Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Yelp Being Sued in San Francisco Courts for Misleading Investors
Gigaom reports that there is a new class action suit against Yelp for security law violations: The complaint alleges Yelp violated securities law by committing “fraud on the market,” and claims that executive sold stock when the price was near a high of almost $90 in February; the price fell sharply shortly after this in light of the negative …
Making Hay While the Sh*t Flies – What Should Union Street Do Now?
The internet is a funny place. A world of opportunity and a world of pain. The Union Street Guest House is in the middle of a maelstrom of its own creation. One that if managed properly could serve them well over the long haul and if managed improperly could flag them for years. There’s no …
Yelp Coming Under Fire For Review Take Downs From Its Reviewers
Yelp is caught in the middle of the shit storm surrounding the hotel that recently was outed for fining wedding parties if they left bad reviews. Thousands of reviews have been posted there and thousands removed. Now though, many reviewers are targeting Yelp for their squelching of dissent and their ability to properly vet reviews. Yelp gave …
Yelp Reviewers – They May be Weird But Andrew Shotland Appreciates their Humor
By now most everyone has heard about the Union Street Guest House, recently outed for threatening a $500 fine if anyone in your wedding party left a bad review. The pile on has started. As of yesterday there were 161 reviews on their page there and most (146) were in response to the news article …
A Plug-in for Adding Google Reviews to Your WordPress Blog
Update: I just heard from David Deering about the plug-in’s use of Schema. Firstly the schema is not done correctly. More importantly however (which I suspected but didn’t investigate as I thought the schema was reserved for the paid version… mea culpa) marking up reviews and ratings that were created on another site actually goes against …
“Nearby” – A Proxy for Voice Based Mobile Search?
Search modifiers, both those used by Google and those frequently used by searchers are interesting. In the case of the former, a change in how Google handled the phrase “near” led to some overstated numbers. In the case of the latter, I wondered whether any of them are effective proxies for measuring the increase in …
Pigeon – An Anecdotal Impact Report
The recent Google Local Update (aka Pigeon) was very disruptive. Although as I wrote at the time and reiterate, only when we actually look at measurable results can we both understand its actual impact and perhaps understand more of what was happening and what changes Google has made. There were two main parts to the update …
Most Excellent! A Compendium of Greatest Hits from my Back Library
Have you ever thought: I really want to spend tonight reading Mike’s back library but I just don’t know where to start? Phil Rozek thought you might and wanted to make your job easier. He pored through the 2400 articles I have written since day one, drove them through the absolute best local algo (Miriam Ellis, …
Google MapMaker Nukes Custom Categories
Custom categories, long missing from Google Maps, had retained their presence in MapMaker. That distinction has now ended. MapMaker has announced the end of custom categories and that MapMaker would now use the standard 2500+ categories that have been available to My Business and Maps. Hello Mappers, Firstly, a BIG thanks for your continued support …
Google Adds Instant Listing Verification Via Webmaster Tools for Most Business Categories
Googler Jade has announced in the forums that they are now going to allow instant verification via webmaster tools for many businesses. From the announcement: Good news — starting today, if you’re verifying a page for your business, you may be instantly verified on Google My Business if you’ve already verified your business’s website with …
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