Google Begins Nationwide Rollout of Tags and Adds New Features

Google has just announced at the LatLong Blog, the beginning of a nationwide rollout of Tags, their paid, local listing enhancement. The feature, first tested in early February and rolled out to 11 cities last month, will first be available in the states where they have already had Tags (California, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Washington, and …

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Google Places – Will Customer Service Decline Further?

As part of Google’s rebranding of the Local Business Center to Google Places, they have created a new help area and a totally new forum area for uses of the Google Places center. The forum move is particularly dramatic and likely to be very disruptive.   Google has archived the very active threads relating to …

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Google Map Enhanced Listing Billing Tab Visible in ALL LBCs?

Becky of OnlineTrafficDivas.com has pointed out what appears to be a mistake but could be inidicitive of a wider rollout of the Enhanced Listing test. The billing tab for the Enhanced Listing test is visible in every Local Business Center account. Go to your list of coupons and select the “link” link: Select the billing …

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More on Google’s Paid “Enhanced Listing” for Local

Yesterday, Greg Sterling reported on a Google test to allow for a new paid listing type, the “enhanced listings” for showing on Maps. According to Google, the “enhancement” will show wherever your listing is currently showing but will not affect rank or where the listing is shown. This test is distinct from the test for …

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New Google UI wiht Local Listing Ads Heatmap

Last week I created a heatmap of the main Google search results with the Local Listing Ads in place. I wanted to compare the results to a heatmap of the new UI with the Local Listing ads. Once again I used AttentionWizard which claims a 75% correlation to human interaction: New Google UI with Local …

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Google Local Listing Ad Heatmap

Like all in the industry, I am curious about how a user might view and respond to the new display that Google is presenting when the Local Listing Ads are included. Between the Adwords, new Local Listing Ads & the 7 Pack organic results have been pushed very far down the page and user behavior …

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Google Maps Local Listing Ad Spam & Other Notes

As Google Local Listing Ads rollout it is no surprise to see spam creeping in and potential trademark questions once again coming to the fore. Pierre Kairouz has shared a screen shot with me for the search taxi San Francisco which brought up this Local Listing Ad. It is interesting in two respects, the use …

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