Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Google Changes Adwords Express & AdWords with Local Extensions Display
Several more minor updates to the way that local results are displayed on the front page of Google. These may have been in place for a while but they have just sunk in for me if they have been. 1-Review counts now include ratings as well as reviews 2-The pin used on Adwords with the …
Google Upgrades New Dashboard with ‘Remove This Listing” Option
The new Places for Business Dashboard has for the most part been a significant improvement over the old Dashboard in most regards. That being said, it was missing one critical feature: you couldn’t remove a listing from the dashboard once you had started the claiming process. That self evident feature has finally be added (just …
Need Help Getting Reviews? Its only $299/mo and a ‘little’ cheating
Google, in their ever increasing focus on reviews, has created a marketplace where abuse of their review system has economic rewards. This is not new but the companies working in the space of getting reviews at any cost have become somewhat more sophisticated in circumventing Google’s filters and refining their pitch. And for as many …
Does Google Helpouts Indicate a New Direction For Local Transactions?
Will Google Helpouts replace the Business Listing Places Page G+Local Page G+ Page for Local as the transaction platform for local commerce? What is Helpouts you ask? It is a (not so) secret Google project that turns Hangouts into a commerce platform/marketplace “that enables individuals and small and large businesses to buy and sell services …
Google Looks to Keep Local Users at Google.com With Two Interface Updates
Google has had a busy week on the local front. The most significant of these updates are two new local interface conventions in the main search results. Clearly Google wants increase the visibility of their reviews and it is going to do so by keeping users on their front page. Yesterday Andrew Shotland started seeing …
10 Reasons that the Google Knowledge Graph Sucks More than the Local Graph
The Knowledge Panel sucks much more than Google Local these days. Its like “Déjà vue all over again” (for those Googlers and other readers too young to know the reference go here). With the Knowledge Graph, like local, Google is attempting to reflect real information about the real world in their search results and, like …
How Many Reviews to Get the Star Treatment? Somewhere Between 4 and 5
Eagle eyed Phil Rozek of Local Visibility pointed out this example of a business with 4 reviews that is showing the new star treatment in the main search result for jewelry boston: I thought that odd as previously it had seemed that 5 reviews was the limit to get the star treatment. Well it is odd. …
Love-Hate Relationship? Zagat Brand Gets Increasing Visibility in 5-Star Carousel
I did not notice this before but as the new Local Carousel takes on the 5-Star treatment, it appears that the Zagat brand is taking on a higher profile or at least its Z is. This seems odd to me given Google’s move away from the Zagat rating system and having laid off all of their temporary …
Google’s 5-(orange) Stars Spreading Internationally, to Adwords & Rich Snippets
More folks are reporting the visibility of the 5-Star system on the main search results that Google has been rolling out. I am seeing them at work in Chrome on my Mac but not in Safari or Firefox and I am still not seeing them at home. There were also reports of them being seen …
First Sightings of Stars in the Carousel
Max Minzer captured the first screen shot of stars in the Carousel. The stars are shown with the stars AND ratio in the same red color but when contrasted with the black background they become very, very, very obvious. The reviews are much more obvious than in the 7-pack reported earlier. (Click to view larger): …
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