Google Local Business Referrals Goes The Way of Lively
Matt McGee just posted that Google Local Business Referrals is shutting down. GLBR paid people to sign up small businesses to Adwords and Google Local Business Center. According to Matt:
In a previous post on this blog, I speculated that the program would fail because it didn’t guarantee enough money to the foot soldiers, that many small business owners would be too busy to follow through on verifying their Google Maps listing, and that even if they did follow-through, the verification process is hit-and-miss.
I am speculating that Google probably took a fairly hands-off approach to this program. As I learned at Insider Pages, even when there’s money involved you can’t expect the community to do what you want it to do without a lot of guidance, promotion and hand-holding. I had forgotten this program even existed so I am guessing the service wasn’t heavily supported by Google and is now a casualty of its recent cost-cutting efforts.
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