Mike Blumenthal

Google My Business sent out a survey this AM where they noted: ….asking for your feedback on how we can best meet your business needs. You can count on us to follow through and continue making improvements to our products and services to help you succeed. For example, in our most recent survey, customers told …

Many (myself included) who use both Apple Maps and Google Maps contend that Apple Maps has gotten good enough that it is simply a matter of preference not functionality as to which one to use. The one area though where Apple had a distinct advantage was in the Watch integration of Apple Maps. It is …

If your account hasen’t yet been upgraded, I have just published a brief but detailed video at LocalU that details some of the features and functionality of the new Google My Business Dashboards. If you would like to see what’s coming and how it works visit the post at Local U.

As we speak Google is in the process of rolling out Google My Business (GMB) & the Google My Bussiness Listing (GMBL bulk) interface updates with a logical integrated hierarchy that is consistent across both products. The upgrade provides improved navigation within any section of the product via improved menus (top and left) and breadcrumbs. It …

Robert Ramirez, SEO Manager at Bruce Clay,  points out that phone number are back in the 3-Pack once again as of the evening. And, once again they are showing in Safari, Chrome and Firefox in the US and on the foreign IPs that I checked. So when you wake up tomorrow morning in Europe and the …

David Mihm is back from England and joined Mary Bowling and myself to talk about the previous week in local. This week’s Local U deep dive video takes a look at David Mihm’s recently released Local Search Ranking Factors. This is the sixth installment of our Deep Dive Into Local series, for the week ending 9/25/15. The …

Tim Colling and Helmut Schmidt (Google Local TC Extraordinaire) both pointed out to me that if you add the word ‘phone’ to your keyword local search, Google DOES in fact surface the phone number. Thus while a search like emergency services buffalo or emergency plumber buffalo would not return a phone number (even though they should…Google …

Chris Alphen of EarlyOftenNow just noted in a comment on my post about the reappearance of phone numbers in the 3 Pack, their disappearance! A quick check across browsers that were showing phone numbers, confirm that they are once again not showing. For those of you that are not following the drama, to the dismay …

Frank Kockritz of Ascend Local pointed out this recent Fox News Clip from earlier in the week announcing a $1000 penalty against a Staten Island women for writing a scathing Yelp review of a flooring company, Mr. Sandless OF Staten Island. According to the court documents: On March 4, 2015 identified as “Emily” she posted the …

Jennifer Slegg of theSEMPost is reporting the return of phone numbers to the Local 3 Pack results. I am not yet seeing them on my Mac with Safari, Chrome or Firefox although some others are reporting seeing them. Update: As of about 5:00 pm eastern they were showing world wide.  Certainly their return would prove …