Mike Blumenthal

Google over the next 48 hours will be rolling our a new analytic feature for the Local Business Center to all U.S. LBC listings. For the first time users of the Local Business Center will have access to detailed information about how their listing is performing in the Universal Local Results on the main results …

If you haven’t seen this video, you should. Its a great summary of the vagaries of claiming a listing using Google Maps and the often times negative real world affects when Maps and reality collide:

Google updated the Maps Listing Guidelines earlier today. It is difficult to understand the differences without a direct comparison to the old guidelines. I have attempted to highlight the changes in italics: Original Guidelines New Guidlelines   Modified Guidelines   Represent your business exactly as it appears in real life. The name on Google Maps …

David Mihm has published his 2009 Local Search Ranking Factor interviews with contributions from 27 folks that work in local. The study, while anecdotal in nature, manages to capture the wisdom of the many in it’s summary of the factors affecting ranking in local search. All in all a stellar job with lots of tidbits …

Update 5/23: The Easy Stars are now visible in List view as well as Maps view There is a new interface feature in Google Maps that allows a user to quickly favor a business listing. A user must be logged in and viewing the listings in the Maps view mode where an outlined star will …

Is Google “crazy” to handle business listings in Maps the way they do? A recent poster to the Manic Merging of Business Listings posted the following in regards to Google merging competing businesses: Google map has merged my clients business listing with his next door neighbor’s business. Now, google map will take visitors to his …

On Monday the Local Business Center was taken down for maintanence and fixes. We know that there has been a decrease in reports of merged business listings (although there are reports of reviews still merging between businesses). It appears that there have been several changes in the phone verification system as well: -Now the PIN …

The Local Business Center came back on line at about 2:45 EDT after being taken off line for several hours earlier today. While it does not appear that there are any new features in the LBC, it does appear that some of the merging of nearby competitors has dissipated. The original examples of Hotels merging …

Update 12:50 5/18 Temporarily Unavailable   The Google Local Business Center is unavailable for the next hour  We appreciate your patience as we perform some routine system maintenance.   More specifically, we’re updating ‘the backend’ (to employ that catchy, catchall moniker coined and lent to us by engineering folks who work on all of the technical …