Last week, Google started to switch out its local Carousel results for a new set of mobilish-type pack results that appear to rely heavily on its local Knowledge Panels, so let’s call it a Knowledge Pack, or “K-Pack”, for the purposes of this post. In his seminal post Some Thoughts On The New Pak Results […]
Last week I posted some theories on why Google’s Pigeon update may have hurt the local rankings for some big local brands. While we have seen a lot of positive rankings improvements for our local clients, we have also heard of some large multi-location brands that got hit with 5-10% traffic losses. My take was […]
The answer is when Google My Business is aggregating and averaging out your reviews. In Google My Business math these nine different 5 star reviews average out to a measly 4.9. For a company that has ~2,000 Ph.Ds in it’s employee, has written one of the most sophisticated computer applications in human history and is […]
Google has been testing replacements for their local carousel and local pack design for a while now. So I was a little surprised when I saw this screenshot. What’s so interesting about this is that a carousel for moving company results would represent an expansion of the carousel user interface, as opposed to all the tests […]
Cori Shirk just shared a new Google mobile-local universal one box: This appears to be a test bucket as after several minutes of trying I am unable to trigger a similar looking result. For a quick comparison this is what the current mobile one boxes look like: The new design is much cleaner then the […]
Oh October! The leaves are changing, fall is almost here and another SMX East is coming to a close. There were a couple of awesome local SEO panels, including a presentation from the affable Founder, Proprietor and CEO of Local SEO Guide: Andrew Shotland. Andrew presented data across directory and SMB sites to provide some […]
It looks like Google is testing yet another carousel replacement. This time it’s with the different “Points of Interest” searches in specific geos. This one looks different then the previous “new” carousel replacement that we had seen. So for those of you keeping score at home there are currently 3 carousels/replacements out there: 1) The […]
1. Stick under wobbly table legs 2. Supplement for low carb diets 3. Bitcoin alternative 4. Keep kids occupied at restaurants 5. Wrap dead fish http://searchengineland.com/goodbye-google-authorship-201975
As Google morphs SERP design from desktop to mobile, it appears that it has decided that reading words is perhaps too much to ask of our educationally-challenged fellow users. And so it is now testing icons in the mobile results as shown below: I guess it’s easier to click on a cute picture than try […]
Our friends over at Moz saw a new SERP feature pop up in their MozCast. Notice the lovely paid ads dressed up as a local pack result? While this is a test, and nothing but a test, is it also a continued acknowledgement from Google that their current methods of dealing with Local search results suck? […]
Steve Shackford‘s tweet got me thinking: @localseoguide Expedia-like move from Google’s algo today on “Dallas Hotels”. http://t.co/EeM4m7Kl8s jumped to #1. pic.twitter.com/SkzigIRSuH — Steve Shackelford (@HydrophobicDuck) August 7, 2014 We are definitely seeing a lot more national-local directory type sites showing up at the top of local SERPs as a result of Google removing or […]
The SEO Catch-22: You’ve done all of the typical technical and content SEO stuff but your organic traffic keeps trending downwards Your SEO guy suspects the culprits are the above-the-fold in-content Adsense units designed to look like content Problem is they are your top performing ad units by a factor of at least 10x […]
My initial review of Google’s Pigeon results, Picking Through Google’s Pigeon Droppings…, was posted on SEL yesterday, but it was written last week and a lot has changed since I submitted it. I was going to write an update here but Linda Buquet’s massive review of pre and post Pigeon SERPs does the job well, […]
Woke up this morning to find what appears to be yet another shuffling of Google’s Pigeon update. In this case I am seeing some food query SERPs display local packs, directories and knowledge graph results – but no recipe results. Taco Click to Enlarge for Analysis Hamburger Granted I am only seeing this for queries […]
Yesterday a client pushed out a new homepage without telling us. I found out because late last night I got this email in my inbox from an actual living, breathing member of Google’s Search Quality team: Say what you will about Google (and clients who double-noindex their homepage), but this is pretty awesome.
Mike Blumenthal just posed a question about this on G+ and I thought it was worthy of posting here. The TL;DR answer is: 1. On G+, Yelp and most other review sites, the reviewer typically owns the content of the review (this is to shield the review sites from liability) while the review sites own […]
Just found a classic thread on one of those “did you get a call from this phone number” sites. Some samples for your local SEO reading pleasure: Calls our business several times per day (not interested in their services). If you hang up, they call right back. They repeat this throughout the day and when […]
This post was originally published on Search Engine Land, but I didn’t like how they rewrote the title so here’s the director’s cut: To: Local Directories From: Google Re: Local Search Rankings Hey guys… You may have noticed that over the past year, a lot […]
Google Webmaster Tools just launched the Manual SPAM Action Viewer which alerts webmasters to manual SPAM issues with their sites. Like a good SEO consultant, I quickly ran through all of my clients and here are the various messages I encountered – ok, perhaps it’s not so “ultimate” – disavow me if you want: Pure […]
Based on the comments I am seeing on yesterday’s post, it appears that the new Google+ Local Reviews Pop-Up has gone global. Since it seems like this is a real thing and not a test, I started looking at it a bit more to figure out the implications. One question that popped up: @localseoguide What […]
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 […]
“Nostalgia means the pain from an old wound…” – Don Draper When Google’s new Local Carousel came to a town near you a couple of weeks ago, I immediately envisioned the Don Drapers of local search in conference rooms around the country dramatically presenting their initial impressions. Of course at the end, instead of Duck […]
Aaron Bradley dropping some Local knowledge, along with a lot of other knowledge, in his fantastic post about the Semantic Web: “…search is no longer about words, but about the things to which the words on a web page describe and make reference…” “Why is this important? It’s important because when Google receives a user […]
WASHINGTON – Following revelations that the U.S. government’s PRISM program has been secretly collecting information on foreigners overseas from the nation’s largest Internet companies like Google, Facebook and, most recently, Apple, in search of national security threats, President Obama admitted that Google’s policy of hiding keywords in Google Analytics was the deciding factor in moving […]
Yesterday I talked about my initial thoughts on Google’s new Local Business Data Highlighter. Tyler Bell of Factual was quick to point out an important point: [View the story “Cheeky Google” on Storify]If you want to have the best chance of ranking for local queries in Google, you should definitely use the tools they give […]
Google’s new Data Highlighter for Local Businesses is definitely worth checking out for anyone trying to goose their local rankings. I have found it to be a bit buggy and it’s a new tool, so proceed with caution. Here are some basics on how to use it along with some tricks I have figured out […]
And in other breaking CitySearch news, Darren Waddell of RadiusIntel just sent me this awesome Google Alert he received this morning: It links to this article from 2007. For all of you marketers recommending that your clients use Google Alerts to monitor what people are saying, be sure to include that it works better if […]
Mike Blumenthal’s instant classic Google Local: Train Wreck at the Junction has spawned a lively Google Plus thread where various Localistas have been wringing their hands as to why oh why can’t Google stop screwing SMBs. While I am in agreement that Google Plus Place Local Multi Merge for Business Dashboardgate has been absolutely no […]
Been getting a bit of anxious email over the past 24 hours about Google crawl rates going way down. I am seeing this pattern on a lot of sites I follow so my best guess at the moment is this is either a Google Webmaster Tools reporting issue or a Googlebot issue more than a […]
Just got this: I applaud Google for notifying site owners that they have some spammy-looking links. I don’t applaud them for not telling site owners which links in particular look spammy. If you have been link-building, then you probably know where to look, but if like me, you haven’t, then you have to spend time […]