Category: Google+ Local

The most comprehensive and advanced Local Search conference.  Advanced LocalU is the only conference of its kind and provides you with the knowledge and tools you need to help your business and the businesses of your clients to prosper in local search. It focuses solely on issues, techniques and practices in the local search marketing […]

Apple is slowly and steadily moving into the local space long occupied by Google and doing so with slow and steady intention. I noticed with the rollout of their business listing product, Map Connect, that they were soliciting venues for their indoor Mapping project. Clearly they are looking for large scale venues with large traffic […]

Greg Sterling has reported that Apple has rolled out Apple Maps Connect, a small business listing option for Apple Maps. The service is dead on simple, designed for one off listings for the business owner or someone acting on their behalf. It isn’t clear the maximum number of businesses that can be associated with and […]

Historically if you wanted to measure traffic to your site from Plus page for local you could add a Google Analtyics tracking code to your site’s URL. Whether this is a bug or not or permanent change is not yet clear but since around the first of the month if your link in the G+ […]

This survey from Ipsos, a market survey company, claims to be on behalf of Google. If that is true then the questions are quite bizarre and really makes one wonder what Google is up to. Is Google looking to replicate what Yext has done with real time data distribution? Or just shooting an arrow across […]

Here is a slight variation on the Pack results that Google has been testing. It was visible yesterday on IE (which I don’t have on my machine so I can replicate). The “more” links take the searcher to a brand search rather than a knowledge panel. In being more explicit than the current roll over […]

Google has just announced the availability of My Business Locations (i.e. bulk) Business Accounts. Essentially this feature allows for an easy secure way to add social managers in bulk and to transfer the ownership of the bulk account or parts of the account to another users.Business accounts provide a safe way to share management of your locations […]

Finding duplicates for the same listing with the Google local index is critical. Unfortunately the new Maps is terrible at it and G+ creates too many false positives. You can revert to the old Maps and its increasingly quirky behavior or MapMaker to find the duplicates in the Google Local index but both of those […]

Last week Dr. Pete from Moz shared a new type of carousel replacement that was starting to show in some browsers. It was seen yesterday as well by Daniel Klotz of YDOP and by Max Minzer. It is similar to the test of the carousel replacement from early August but with the Map missing. Darren […]

Google is sending out a new My Business Report via email to verified owners of listings. The report is attractive with meaningful calls to action to visit the My Business or to contact Google Help even if the report is glaringly inaccurate. On the several reports that I have received so far, the review number […]

It has been a little over 2 months since the Pigeon update. And while quality issues continue, with some listings taking a hit and others gaining, Barbara Oliver & Co Jewelry seems to have netted out with slight gains in web traffic similar to what she saw immediately post update. Her total web traffic was […]

In addition to the Local heat maps & CTR studies that I shared yesterday , Mediative also looked at the behaviors around the Carousel in their study: The Evolution of Google Search Results Pages and Their Effects on User Behaviour”. As with the 7-pack information yesterday, there are limits to this study. The CTR are particularly […]

Mediative has published results of their recent eye-tracking and click through research performed last spring that included local pack and carousel results:  The Evolution of Google Search Results Pages and Their Effects on User Behaviour”. They discuss the local implications in a blog post today. While the study has some methodological issues the results are interesting […]

Several interesting and developments last week from Google in the Local space. Google declares the end of Panoramio and the rise of Google Views: With the release of Google Views, the new Map integrated photo application, Google has declared that they will wind down Panoramio as they wind up Views. Of course there is an […]

When Dan Leibson showed me this Google Answer Box I thought either that the Google Answer Box had a wicked sense of humor or maybe, just maybe, it knew something that I didn’t. Given the recent court decision in Germany ordering Google to “stop ignoring customer emails and start offering a way to communicate with the […]