Mike Blumenthal

Local Searchers Hunt for Ideas, Not Categories – Brian Wool, ClickZ In recent weeks, bloggers and others have discussed how consumers are adopting a new way to use local search engines, Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), and local directories. Actually, it’s not so much how consumers use local search products but how their search queries are …

Your content on Google Maps Jess Lee – Google Lat Long Blog Over the past 11 months, people have created more than 9 million My Maps, encompassing a total of 40 million placemarks. That’s an impressive 1 new placemark created every second! We never anticipated that people would become so interested in mapmaking, which used …

The following snippet from the Google Maps For Business Owners Group highlights one of the intrinsic conflicts of interest that Google confronts in all of its properties. While they are unwilling, particularly in Google Maps, to provide any guidance on best practices lest they give away their secret sauce, they do want you as an …

How To Get On Google Maps Without An Address – Chris Silver Smith, SEL [Google] essentially said that they should try to get an address in the city because Google did not display businesses that didn’t have addresses—after all, he quipped, one can’t pinpoint something without an address on the map. He suggested that those …

Update 02/11/10: Google has dramatically updated their category syntax. These Google LBC categories have now been placed in a searchable database too located on the Google LBC Categories page of my website. Update 12/20/09: I have a new list of current categories at Google Local Business Center Categories – The Complete List The most oft repeated complaint and …

I am of the opinion that Google Maps in all of its forms is the future look and feel of search for Google, particularly in the mobile world. There has been a number of subtle and not so subtle changes that have increased Maps integration into general search as well over the past month: • …

On late Monday afternoon I received a call from Elissa Heyman, a Psychic Counselor from Santa Fe, NM inquiring as to how she might show up in the Local OneBox for Psychic in Santa Fe, NM. I was intrigued that a pyschic would turn to me from results she found in Google. After a bit …

On of the long standing mysteries in managing a Local Business Center business listing for Google Maps has been:“Why does my listing not show up in the same category as my competitor?”. There has not been a topic more frequently raised in the Google Maps for Business Group and one that has been more evasively …