I haven’t pontificated on last week’s changes that removed most of the third party data from displaying on Google Place Pages – I basically agree with David Mihm’s assessment of the situation – this is an interface update, not an algorithm update. This article by FT.com implies that Google removed 3rd party reviews from Place […]
I have been hearing reports from a variety of sources that over the past few days more rich snippets have started to show up in Google Places. Using rich snippets on your site to get your content into Place Pages has been a hit-or-miss affair – mostly miss. At SMXWest, Google’s Carter Maslan told me […]
Mike Blumenthal has some concerns re Google Places’ new user review feeds: When was the last time you heard a reviewer ask for an RSS feed of their reviews? Well maybe some reviewer some place did… but then I suggest you follow Google’s instructions and go find it. Instead of attaching it to the obvious place in […]
Lior Ron announced today that Google is dumping the HotPot brand for its local reviews system and rolling it into Google Places. It’s a good move and I am guessing an indicator of more product coherence from GOOG as a result of Larry Page becoming CEO. I was always confused by the HotPot brand. Most, […]
During Yipit’s presentation on Group Buying Data at ILMEast this morning James Moran mentioned that a deal from DealFind for The Butchers on Yonge Street in Toronto could have been one of the most successful daily deal offers yet. The Canadian company offered 69% off meat orders and sold over 11,000 orders which generated over […]
Reviews of businesses on Groupon have been spotted on Google Place Pages since January: Last year I speculated that social local applications like Twitter & Foursquare could start to cause a lot of SEO problems for IYPs because they could easily replicate the IYP structure while providing a lot more unique content. Groupon reviews are […]
UPDATE 11/14/12: According to commenter bob, this issue has been settled and was the result of some wayward affiliates of Legacy, not Legacy itself. Another company gets busted by the feds to the tune of $250,000 for using fake reviews to generate business: The Learn and Master Guitar program promoted by Legacy Learning and Smith […]
We’ve got rats. There I said it. I opened up the door to my furnace and found a scattering of crusty little rat droppings. And to make matters worse I think the rats have mites as I woke up this morning with a big bite taken out of my posterior (TMI?). So who you gonna […]
BreakThrough Radio, an enterprising music site in New York, sent over this woman-on-the-street video interviewing consumers and businesses about how social media impacts their decisions on where to eat, shop, etc.
I thought it would be nice to end the year highlighting the blog’s top 10 most popular posts for the year. Thanks to all my readers, commenters, linkers, lurkers, clients and of course Google for making it a great year. Lifestyle Lift – Fake Reviews Will Cost You Real $ A 2009 post, but in […]