Mike Blumenthal

Google has difficult a programming problem that they are attempting to solve in Google Maps. There are somewhere on the order of 25 million businesses in the U.S. and there are perhaps more than 25 billion web pages for (some of) those businesses in their index. Google, in their Maps product, wants to gather as …

I don’t think that this is the case but at SeoRoundTable there is a posting in regards to Local Business Listing being hijacked that was based on a discussion at a Digital Point Forum thread: I have a client, who did not register a business listing on Google maps, but their competitor took the time …

Bill Slawski has recently reported on a Google patent to deliver ads on your cell phone. After reading the patent, I happened to be playing with Google SMS yesterday and received my very own (obviously reduced) ad that read: (Ad)Hotels.com Great Hotel Rates! Hotels.com 800-449-4167 Here is what Adwords has to say (my italics and …

There is a more than a little irony in Google’s “official response” to the complaints about problems with the underlying geo-location data (italics are mine for emphasis): == 9 of 10 == Date: Fri, Jan 19 2007 2:29 pm From: “Maps Guide Jen” I just wanted to let you know that your voices and concerns …

In my previous post about the sources and weightings of local information it was clear that reviews and web references played a key role in your Google Maps ranking and hopefully a business’s appearance in the top 3 One Box. However if you execute the link command (link:www.anchorbar.com ) for the number 1 ranked restaurant, …

Google Maps attempts to gather authoritative details of a local business by crawling & parsing the semi-structured data of on-line directories (see also Bill Slawski’s patent summary). I was curious which directories they actively use to fill in the details section. To start answering that question I analyzed the directories listed Google Maps in the …

Bill Slawski of SEO by The Sea and I have been having a discussion about whether the technologies and strategies that he outlined in his Google Local Patent Summary were enough to allow Google Maps to be accurate. Bill sent me a long list of reasons why Google Local could not be accurate. Up until …