Looking for a Legend In All the Wrong Places

Zebedi recently posted this comment on my Get a Virtual Office With a Keyword Stuffed Maps Listing article. I thought it worth highlighting and responding: As a small business person, I cannot find an SEO that can tell me how to genuinely appear in search results in the areas we genuinely service. Why is it …

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Is Google AdWords Testing a New Local Adwords Display Type?

In July, Google upgraded AdWords to allow advertisers to add the full address to their search ads through location extensions. It appears that they are now testing a new ad layout similar to the one developed for Local Listing Ads. Tim Coleman of A Second Opinion, sent along this screen shot from last week of …

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Google Changes Guidelines AGAIN!

Stefano Gorgoni has pointed out that Google has once again changed the Business Listing Guidelines as regards to legal business name, switching back to the standard that was in use previously: Previous Guideline New Guideline The business name on Google Maps must be your full legal business name. Represent your business exactly as it appears …

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Has Google Maps Fixed the OneBox Problem?

Since August, there had been numerous complaints in the forums (here, here, here, here) and in this blog that Google was increasingly presenting the Authoritative OneBox on more general searches that should really be showing the Lucky 7 Pack. In late September there was an active post in the forum that seemed to coalesce a …

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Local Search: News of the Weird

I love the intersection of Map and life and sometimes the things that I read provide a new angle that just wasn’t obvious before. This recent post in the Google Maps forums raises all sorts of questions. It falls into the category of “no wonder they are getting a divorce”: Date: October 31, 2009 4:17:25 …

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Google Maps and PO Boxes – When can they be used?

Updated 11/05/09- Authoritative word on PO Boxes from Joel Headley of Google: PO Boxes have proven unverifiable and are called out as such. We’re working on providing the right solution for businesses that need to hide a home address, however. The poor man’s virtual office, the PO Box, has been singled out in the new …

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