Adwords Express Changing Ad Titles Depending on Search

Adwords Express has generally improved since its initial nationwide rollout in January of 2011 and its name change in July of last year. It was initially dogged with poor targeting and huge spikes in monthly cost per click that often made their use untenable. I have continued to test it in a range of local situations …

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Google Updates Blended Display on Desktop AND Mobile

  At the end of February I reported that Google was including both rich snippet reviews AND authorship images and links in blended results on the desktop. At the time these features had not appeared in the mobile results. Starting yesterday Google has once again updated the Blended display on the desktop to not show …

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The Google Places Guidelines Enforcement Plan

Wanting to get across the point that SMBs need to read the Google Guidelines in a recent seminar, I worked with Margaret Shulock, a nationally syndicated cartoonist who lives down the road, to develop this comic. If you would like to share this with your readers please do. Over the next month I will be …

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Google Updates Places Time to Live for Dashboard Data

The last 3 or 4 months in Places have been quite erratic. Some data that had been posting from Places in moments had gone to weeks. It seemed that things like descriptions could take 6 to 7 weeks. Google has just announced a new speedier update cycle of “usually a few days” for most data …

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Google Places: Review Bug Or New Link to A Google Property?

Frequent contributor Plamen has pointed out a new “behavior” in how Google is handling the main search display of new Google reviews showing up on the Place page; adding a link to the location in the “around the web” review section. Whether this is a bug or one more way to insert another link to …

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Mid-Altlantic Innkeepers Conference Keynote

Monday, I am presented the keynote, Google is From Mars and You are From Venus – Or how I learned to stop worrying and love Google at the Mid-Atlantic Innkeepers Conference in Williamsburg.  It was an incredibly well run and fun conference. Meeting with both aspiring and successful bed and breakfast owners was educational and inspirational. Although I think …

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Yext & Local SEO

Yext is doing local differently. I don’t normally write reviews of commercial products but when they offered me two free listings I decided to explore the value of the service for local SEOs. In local citation building we have come to expect that it might take 8, 16 or even 20 weeks for a citation …

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