Carter Maslan Responds To Rich Snippet FAQ Language Change

I sent the following email to Carter Maslan, Product Management Director, Local Search at Google for clarification: You have been quoted as saying at Kelsey: “Merchants should be publishing their own reviews and that Google would find them.” Today I reread the new Rich Snippet FAQ and it says (which is a change from October): …

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Google’s Rich Snippets For Local FAQ Update

Google at some point over the past four months has changed the Rich Snippets for Local FAQ. These changes to their Help Files are not transparent in the least (boo to Google!). Google provides no RSS feeds, no history of changes and no date that a given change was published. For a company that proclaims …

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Google Places: Testimonials as Reviews Now Viewed As Spam?

In early October, 2010, shortly after Google announced support for Rich Snippets in Local, Google Rich Snippet FAQ noted the following: How will Google treat businesses posting testimonials with review mark up on their own site? Will these be treated as a review by the Place Page? Testimonials will be treated as business reviews on …

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When Google Places Doesn’t Work, It Really Doesn’t Work

Universities, hospitals, governments… it is often very difficult for them to get control of their listings in Google Places. Some of this is due to the claiming process and some due to the underlying nature of the way that Google assembles listing data. Regardless, when it doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work and, as this …

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Last Public Comment About Reviews From Google

[countup date=2010/11/10-12:00:00] It has been [dhmstimer], since Google last publicly commented on their losing of business reviews. [/countup] Since that time, reports of Google losing business reviews continue to come in. From both personal experience and reports that flow into the forums, it is clear the Google has yet to solve the lost review problems. …

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Google Tool Sends Alert When Satellite Imagery Is Updated

Barry Schwartz highlighted this new tool this morning that automatically alerts a user via email when the satellite imagery for a given area has been updated. The tool is super simple to use and provides you with a dashboard to unsubscribe from previous requests. It is also a super simple way to ascertain lat/log to …

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Google Chrome OS Providing Click To Call Functionality

Google Chrome OS, their cloud based operating system currently being tested, provides click to call functionality on all Google blended local search results as well as phone numbers visible in general search results or on web pages. The call is connect over the Google VOIP network. The functionality is available on Google apps on smartphones …

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