Last week was probably the best ever for articles and posts about local search. Several things that caught my attention, which I’ll list and discuss as needed below.

Greg Sterling: TheFind Introduces Local Shopping
Ages ago, I wrote about real-time inventory being the “killer app” for local search. That’s the holy grail, at least where local search and e-commerce meet. In his post, Greg Sterling writes about how TheFind is trying to solve this by matching products on retail web sites to the physical addresses of the retailer’s stores. What’s not clear to me is if TheFind is actually showing real-time inventory; the press release is ambiguous, while Greg’s screenshots show you have to “Call for availability” — which is not the same as showing real-time inventory on the web.

Andrew Shotland: Yellowbot SEO Analysis: Part One
Andrew shares some interesting comments on how Yellowbot might be doing itself an SEO favor by removing categories from its local search directory. It’s an excellent thought piece, though not the kind with hard “how to” help for a small business interested in local search marketing.

Tim Coleman: Is Google Filtering Reviews or Reviewers?
Tim follows-up a recent post by Mike Blumenthal on the apparent purging of many reviews from the local business listings on Google Maps, and provides some evidence that he thinks shows Google is favoring reviews from trusted reviewers — power reviewers, or people that leave a lot of reviews. I’m not sure there’s enough evidence to confirm or refute the idea, but it’s good food for thought. And as good as the article is, the discussion in the comments is perhaps even better and more educational.

Peter Krasilovsky: Merchant Circle Goes Positive in Telemarketing Effort
It seems like my least favorite company of all-time continues to use telemarketing spam in order to increase its number of sign-ups. But unlike before when they scared small businesses into signing up on the premise of being able to read negative reviews, now they’re telling the small business to sign up and read positive reviews about their business. Only, just like before, there really aren’t any reviews at all. Total losers.

John Lee: What Everyone Ought to Know About Geo-Targeting in Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing
This is a quick and painless (and terrific) introduction to using geo-targeting in a PPC campaign. It’s perfect for the small business that hasn’t yet dipped its toes in this aspect of search marketing.

So, as I was saying, that was the Best. Week. Ever. for local search blogging. Thanks all for the terrific posts and articles and discussion.