We have been seeing a lot of mismatched locations in the local packs lately but this one takes the cake, er curry…: (Click to enlarge) You know you can’t beat Nayana Eye Care in Pradesh. They’re “recognized by the Food Corporation of India” and have “world-class sterility.”
UPDATE: Some of my better-read compatriots have pointed me towards Greg Sterling’s article from April about how Google is using the layout below to appease anti-competition complaints in Europe. So take my theories below as pure entertainment, as it should be. Nick Rink of Smart Local , a UK Local SEO firm, posted a screenshot of this new Google Local SERP this morning on Google+: I can’t find another example of this, or a full SERP screenshot, but I…
In my SEL post 7 Things I Have Figured Out About The New Google Maps, I mentioned that businesses might want to try using ALL CAPS in their business name on their Google Places + Local (whateva) profile as I had noticed EXTREME PIZZA rocking the all-caps in the map result I was studying: A commenter then added: We quickly updated the post to warn readers that all caps in a business name might not be a good idea. In…
Not sure if I am seeing a test or if this is rolling out everywhere but now when I click on the “[#] Google reviews” link for a business from the SERPs, I am seeing a lightbox type of pop up display instead of being sent to the Google Plus Page for the business. Check it out: Here’s the URL that shows the pop-up. Some initial observations: The default view is a list of the 10 most recent reviews with…
Just caught Greg’s piece on Facebook’s new mobile local search feature: Facebook Gets Into Local Search with Facebook Nearby for iOS & Android. While I don’t expect Facebook Nearby to stay ad-free forever, with the entry of Facebook Nearby and Apple Maps, both ad-free, I’d say 2012 has been the most interesting year in the Local Search biz since Google Places rolled out. Many in the industry would argue that the ads do help people find the right businesses and help…
This just left on How To Add a Business To Internet Yellow Pages Listings For Free: My name is Carol and my ex-boyfriend dumped me 4 months ago after I caught him of having an affair with someone else and insulting him. I want him back in my life but he refuse to have any contact with me. I was so confuse and don’t know what to do, so I visited the internet for help and I saw a testimony of…
Jade Wang of Google just announced that your old Google+ Business Page can now be merged with your new Google+ Local page which used to be your Google Places Page. As usual Mike Blumenthal has got the goods to help you make sense of the whole thing. Here’s Jade’s post: For those of you that have created local Google+ pages (with social features) — good news! Today, you can become the verified business owner for that local Google+ page. In…
This past February, in The Non-Place-Place Use Case I posted about how Google was delisting businesses that did not service customers at their locations but had not requested their addresses be hidden on Google Maps. Mike, Miriam and others chimed in on how lame this was. Today, I got this email about this “recent” update: Guess they were busy with the Glasses thing…
My post on Bizible’s new local search ranking factors study is now up at SearchEngineLand. You can also get more detail on the study and the results on Bizible’s blog. As mentioned in my SEL post, Bizible claims the study is scientifically valid and while in general I liked their approach, I can think of a number of flaws in the methodology – the #1 flaw being that they are not Google 🙂 And of course CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL…