Mike Blumenthal

Google’s test of the their new Home Service Ads generated a fair bit of conversation yesterday on Twitter. The ads started appearing more widely throughout the day allowing folks to dig in and get a better look. Documents worth reading: HSA Additional Terms for Providers  Home service ads Policies Locksmith & Licensing – The test …

Updated 8:15 PM with images and details captured by Glenn Gabe of of G-Squared Interactive. Dr. Pete Meyers of Moz posted this screen shot of a sponsored Snak Pak test displayed for the search “plumbers” in San Francisco. It was captured on a desktop search last night. Reports of Google getting into home services first surfaced this …

Google just announced a new feature on mobile browsers, a chart showing the hours that a given business is popular. From their post: Do you ever find yourself trying to avoid long lines or wondering when is the best time to go grocery shopping, pick up coffee or hit the gym (hint: avoid Monday after …

Google is apparently removing My Business accounts for TOS violations and sending along notices to owners and managers. It is not clear to me the specifics of that triggered this action although clearly this has happened to more than a few accounts as there is at least one other report in the forum.   This message confirms …

I have received a copy of a post made to Google Photographers’ forum. This was also recently posted at Linda’s forum: Dear photographers and agencies, In the past few months, you may have seen some changes in the look of Google+ pages that have been associated with Google My Business (GMB) accounts. These changes, including how we …

Dave Oremland has pointed out recently that searching for mobile phone stores Vienna Virginia produced terrible results. Tim Capper, another TC in the Google My Business forums, noted that they are terrible world wide. So for now don’t go looking for a mobile phone store on Google unless of your you think it is your …

Google seems to have finally finished rolling out a Snak Pak update that layers a Hotel Finder like experience on all hospitality, food and entertainment searches. Colin Neilson wrote about some of the tests in early July as did Brad Brewer. Barry Schwartz noted the rollout in hotels several days ago. It appears to be …

In anticipation of the re-opening of MapMaker as announced last week, Google is now actively soliciting applicants to become regional editors. Here is an email that I just received asking me to apply to be a regional editor. Subject: Invitation to become a Map Maker Regional Lead Date: July 17, 2015 at 2:59:19 PM EDT …

Leaving a review for a business on Google via a mobile has long been a pain. However starting in early May on Android 5 and gradually working its way across Google’s & Apple’s mobile browsers, users can once again leave a review for a business using almost any mobile browser. This includes Safari and Chrome …

Google has finally acknowledged publicly that they were now adding Google Local reviews to Adword ads that use Location Extensions. These were seen in the wild starting several weeks ago. These reviews can be seen instead of seller ratings from 3rd party sites. Previously it was only possible to get Google Local review stars if you …