Mike Blumenthal

The Google Franken Page problem seems to have largely if not completely disappeared. In a check of 54 links from Uncle Bob’s Storage that were known to have suffered from the problem only one remains that has not yet been fixed. That is down from 2 bad listings this AM so a fix seems to be …

The inevtibale and complete separation of Google Local data and results from G+ continues. Michael Cottam reported yesterday that the Google Places API which had been returning the Plus page regardless of whether a listing was verified or not is now returning the maps result. From his post: the docs on the Place Details Requesthave been …

Google My Business List (aka GMBL, Bulk) has not seen this many upgrades in a quarter since the financial meltdown in 2008. Google rolled out last night a small but helpful upgrade that allows businesses to  set different hours for different days both en masse and on a daily date basis. The feature rolled out …

Local U Advanced is my favorite local event of the year; its collegial, casual, intimate and leading edge educational. This year the event will be held in Williamsburg, Va the night of March 4th and all of March 5th, 2016. The agenda for the event will be coming out on November 8th but if you …

I am a student of local. I read Google patents, I study legal documents. And I am reasonably a good speller. That doesn’t mean that I can spell Acxiom’s name correctly very often. Nor can I pronounce it. It is one of those corporate branding exercises that must have looked great on paper but never …

Starting Monday we started seeing a growing number of weirdly formatted G+ Pages for local. Apparently it is being caused by the fact that Google has changed EVERY MANY G+ Plus page url for local (not all pages but definitely some…). Most of the new URL’s redirect accurately but for some fairly large percentage that is …

I have just published a new post on incentivizing revies at the GetFiveStars* blog: Review Incentives? Are the Benefits Worth the Cost? Reviews and testimonials are powerful social proof of your business’s capabilities but they are often hard to get. Incentives, including contests and discount coupons as well as direct rewards, often will increase your review …

I have been traveling for the past week so I am not sure when this hit the street or that I am seeing it because I am inside of Google but Google has added the ability to directly contact a business via the Knowledge Panel. This is a feature that was first tested in 2006 and …

Google, with the release of the new Google My Business API, is perhaps suggesting one of the biggest “best practice” shifts for handling SMB Google My Business accounts in years by suggesting that it is not only ok but preferred to claim multiple listings in a single Google My Business account. Yesterday in the Google Ads …

Updated 10/15 Google has started to open up the Google My Business API. The API allows “authorized representatives to manage business location information on Google that you can use with Ads, Search and Maps”. Currently the API can be used to edit individually verified locations but not bulk. The API will be able to manage …