Category: Google
Google, Yelp and Why Review Counts are Meaningless
Google has been copying Yelp’s approach to “social local” for some time now, with things like its Hotpot ratings/reviews service, the creation of “community managers” that work on the ground in several cities to increase awareness and usage of Google Places and several other things that I detailed on Search Engine Land a little while [...]
Is Google Figuring Out When Many Businesses Share One Address?
I noticed this a few weeks ago and emailed a couple of the local search chumps about it, then completely failed to blog about it. (Until now. Obviously.) Google has added a little messaging on Place Pages in situations when more than one business shares an an address. It says, as you can see below, [...]
Google Places Turns 1: What’s Working, What’s Not
Google Places turned a year old this week, which is kinda like 10 years in Internet time. And, like many 10-year-olds, Google Places is getting to that stage between being a cute kid and a troublesome teenager. (Apologies to my 13-year-old son.) It’s been quite a first year for Google Places — a year filled [...]
Google Places: Analytics Missing in Action (Again)
Is your Google Places dashboard showing any analytics data right now? Mine isn’t. There’s a Google Places help forum thread with a couple other users reporting the same thing, so at least I’m not alone. That doesn’t lessen the frustration. There was a similar problem in late February that seemed to take a few weeks [...]
Google Tweaks Guidelines on Soliciting Reviews … But Is It Enough?
Google recently rewrote its guidelines on review solicitation and significantly narrowed what it considers to be inappropriate tactics for getting reviews. The change is very recent, and appears to be related to Google’s own promotion of HotPot in the Portland, Oregon market a couple months ago. But I can’t help wondering if another rewrite is [...]
When Google Review Clippings Go Horribly Wrong
Google Maps (and other business listing sites) often clip highlights from the user reviews and feature them prominently on a Place Page to give readers a quick sense of the sentiment about that business. Well, from the “You Have To See It To Believe It” Department comes this review clipping that’s showing on the Google [...]
Is Google Giving Mixed Signals on AdWords Helping SEO?
Google has repeated innumerable times over the years that using its AdWords paid advertising program doesn’t help with SEO, has no impact on a site’s organic rankings, and is completely separate from SEO and organic rankings. So isn’t this Google ad just a little bit confusing?
Google: Goodbye to Real Estate Search
I can’t really explain enough how shocked I am that Google is ditching the real estate listings that currently show in Google Maps. Amazing. Real estate is, in some ways, a pre-cursor to what we’re seeing now more generally with local search itself. Today, we often talk about how the yellow pages books are being [...]
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