Category: Google Local Business Center

Last week Google launched a controversial new feature on local Place Pages – a list of nearby businesses that promotes local competitors on a business’ Place Page, even if that business has claimed their GLBC profile.  With this move Google has perhaps decided that the Yellow Pages industry is totally off their rockers – many YP sites show competitive listings on a business’ profile page only until the business becomes an advertiser. As Matt McGee suggests, it would be a…

In my recent interview on SEOBook I mused that Google might create ways for agencies to get access to a business’ GLBC profile.  Matt McGee spoke with a GLBC rep today and got the following responses: “agency access to LBC is unlikely” & “they may give biz owner a way to share account with one person” Not perfect but sounds like a step in the right direction.

Last week saw the launch of Google Place Pages which Google described as “a webpage for every place in the world, organizing all the relevant information about it.” Nothing like a modest goal to scare the crap out of everybody else in local search. According to Greg Sterling Google was not going to be indexing Place Pages.  There is no crawlable architecture to speak of – at least nothing I could find thus far – so one would think that…

Google Maps is on the verge of creating an international incident.  I did the following search on Google: “pizza 94566” I got the 10 pack.  Check out the URL for “New York Pizza” If I had wanted a “Damn Tasty!” za from Amstelveen I would have asked for one Google. I highly recommend checking out the site.  I personally always go for the “1 pizza, 2 smaken!” deal. Their TV commercial is unbelievably awesome (but not safe for work). oh…

Check out the above local result for “flooring phoenix, az”.  Why is www.bakerbrosdeli.com showing up as the URL for Baker Bros Area Rugs & Flooring?  This is likely just a simple case of an algorithmic mismatch, but given how easy it is to edit the business listings in Google Maps, it also could be a case of an aggressive marketer with a similar brand trying to get traffic any way they can. The moral of the story – go claim…

Mike Blumenthal posted a pretty thorough overview of changes to Google Local Business Center.  As always Mike is the man if you want to dive into the details of everything GLBC.