• Spanish
• German
• Portuguese
• Dutch
• Russian
• French
• Italian
• Polish
• Japanese

And apparently the ones in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) are still under construction.

I haven’t tested those myself yet, so I currently have no information on how much the response time is.

My wife and me moved to a new condo about 6 months ago. Although I have office space that I rent monthly, I go there very occasionally for meetings and training with my team, and there isn’t even constant Internet access there. In 99% of the time I work from home, so the move meant that I also moved my office. Unfortunately, it became clear very soon (a few days before the move) that it might be a problem to find a good quality Internet provider that covers the condo. Don’t get me wrong – the building is well within the boundaries of the second largest city in Malaysia – Johor Bahru, and is in probably the fastest developing regions of the city. In Malaysia, the telecommunications business is almost entirely monopolized by the national telecommunications company – Telekom Malaysia (TM). They provide the highest quality broadband Internet, and are practically the only provider of fiber-optic Internet (the other major Internet provider uses TM’s infrastructure to offer their fiber-optic Internet service). Unfortunately, at the time of our move, TM was not covering the condo (although they covered almost every other building in the neighborhood). I asked a few different representatives if they know about any plans for the condo to be covered. All replied negatively. There were only two options left – P1 and Yes. I had heard equally bad things about both, but as P1 had a 1-week charge-free test period, I tried them first. The Internet quality was awful and the speed was very far from the promised. I requested for cancellation within the 1-week period, when it turned out that: 1) it was not really completely charge-free, and 2) it was not really one week, but more like 3 working days. However, I managed to somehow cancel my subscription and was left with only one option – Yes.

Yes has relatively positive reputation when it comes to mobile Internet, but they don’t seem to be that good at providing home online access. Additionally, the minimum contract option was 2 years. I had a lot of doubts since the beginning, but I had no choice – I signed the contract and was promised (max) 20Mbps speed with maximum data usage per month… 10GB. This was the biggest data plan they offer and the cost was RM168 per month (~US$55). Obviously, the data was not enough for me, although I was trying to save from everything – no YouTube watching, no matches watching online, no excessive browsing. I was forced to purchase add-ons called “superboosters”, with the biggest add-on being 3.6GB at RM55 (~US$18). On average, I had to purchase 2 such add-ons per month, which means that I was paying ~US$90 per month for 17GB of home Internet data per month at a maximum speed of 20Mbps. The average speed I was able to get was around 8-9MbpS. Doesn’t sound like the best deal, huh? On top of it all, I was unable to do online calls, because the Internet was apparently not up for it and it was going down practically every 30 seconds while I was talking using Skype. This practically ruined my consultation business. Additionally, I was unable to pick the phone (my US phone number is attached to Skype) for many potential clients, so my overall business drastically decreased.

There was hope, though. TM started offering their service for our condo about 1 week (!!!) after I subscribed to Yes. Of course I started trying to cancel my contract with Yes as soon as I learned about this, but there was one tiny problem – the cancellation clause in the contract stated that the penalty fee was equal to the fees for the whole withstanding period of the contract. This meant that I had to pay RM3,500+ in order to cancel (~US$1150). I made about 150 to 200 complaint calls to Yes, almost always demanding to talk with a manager, and I managed to get one only on 2 occasions. The second one was my success – the manager agreed to make a deal with me and I had to pay “just” RM 600 for the cancellation (~US200). This happened 5 months after my first complaint. Overall cost for my calls was about RM200. As the cancellation was not confirmed until the last moment, I had to wait for the final approval before I contacted TM. When I finally did, I sorrowfully learned that the waiting period for TM’s Internet to be installed is 1 week. Of course Yes switched off my Internet access immediately after the cancellation was confirmed, so for 1 week I had no Internet access.

1 week later, I finally had good quality Internet after almost half a year of struggle. Everything was perfectly fine (even suspiciously perfectly fine, I’d say) for about half a month until just two weeks ago. My Internet started switching off and switching on without any obvious reason. I started digging for information and discovered that per government order the Internet should have been cut off for people that read politically-related content – this was related to the general elections in Malaysia that took place on May 5. As a person coming from Bulgaria, a country where democracy is nothing more than a textbook term, this was not a major surprise for me. However, what really amazed me and was the final drop to making me write this article was what happened last Wednesday (May 8).

I was working as normal in the nice morning when suddenly the Internet went off. I was thinking it was again something related to the above mentioned issue, but when the Internet never came back for more than an hour I understood something was wrong. All my attempts to restore the connection were also in vain. I called TM and after attempting to fix the problem distantly, their technician came on Thursday afternoon. He performed a few checks and stated that the problem was not with TM, but with the building’s wiring. I called the building maintenance and the guy responsible for the wiring came to check what was wrong. In the meantime the TM technician was gone. After double-checking, the building maintenance rep said there was no problem with the wiring. After a few more calls to TM and to the building management where everyone was pushing the blame to the other, they decided to leave it for Friday as their working day was over. Unfortunately, on Friday my wife and me had a scheduled trip to Kuala Lumpur, because we had to verify some legal documents (legal matters are hard when the two countries have (almost) no diplomatic relationships). When we were back on Sunday, the issue was still there. Obviously, nobody worked on a Sunday, and that is when we come to today (Monday, May 13). Another TM technician came in the morning and came to the same conclusion – the problem didn’t lie with TM. I called the maintenance guy and made them both go to the building manager. He made them double-check each part of the telecommunication infrastructure of the building and after 3 hours – they finally fixed the problem! My Internet was back and everything was as it used to be. I had enormous pile of work to finish, including a lot of overdue tasks. Half an hour later, when I was just getting started, it happened again – the Internet went down and the model was back to the dreaded stage where it was showing “no DSL connection.” Right now I am waiting for the TM technician to come back.

P.S. If you wonder how I wrote this article – I used my mobile 3G data, which gives me an average broadband speed of 500Kbps.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

To both SERPs will be added a frame that would signify the Google Places search results.

Before moving to how Google will be determining which sites would be considered as “relevant providers”, here are my thoughts on how this might affect the local search results:

First, if I were the complainers, I was going to be very dissatisfied with Google’s proposal. The changes are obviously made in a way that would satisfy the minimum possible requirement. The visibility of the links to the third-party sites is (purposefully) lowered by the fact that they are under the map (in the desktop SERP) and in smaller font (in the mobile SERP). Additionally, in the mobile SERP, the user should click one more time to reach the third-party search results, as compared to Google’s native ones. Second, it seems like the new layout (map within the results and frame around the Places results) would actually boost the visibility of Google’s properties even more than the current one does. Anyone can submit their feedback and observations via email at COMP-GOOGLE-CASES@ec.europa.eu under reference number AT.39.740 – Google . The feedback can be written in any of the EU official languages (which includes Bulgarian!). The deadline is 1 month from publication in the Official Journal of the European Union (which means 25 May 2013). Countries that would be affected by the change include all the members of the EEA (EU + Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein), as well as all future members (most probably Croatia will join the group even before the implementations go live).

Google also gives a detailed explanation of how the third-party sites will be picked. Here are some outlines:

- The sites might be less then three, based on how many would qualify as per Google’s requirements
- There will be a tool which sites could use to apply to become a potential pick for these “Vertical Sites Pools”
- Criteria for a site to be included in a vertical sites pool include the presence of search functionality, be limited to a small number of content categories (generalist search sites won’t be considered eligible), be within the first 100,000 sites in terms of traffic per Alexa, acceptable quality of user experience, and others
- The sites that have the highest “Web Search Rank” (i.e. the rank of the site for the generic search results for the query in question) will be preferred for display
- Google could remove sites from the pool if they are found to violate a significant number of requirements

Theoretically, this means that same business directory websites that have been ranking for local search queries up to now will be the one to be picked (if they apply and are accepted). If I were them, and if the layout stayed the same as it is proposed by Google, I’d actually rather not apply if that would mean losing my organic result on first page (that might include things such as review snippets, meta description, sitelinks, and others). It would just decrease my real estate without giving me much additional visibility.

What are your takeaways? Do you think the new layout of Google’s search results would benefit their competitors or do you think they are still pretty self-serving?

What will change and what will be added

Besides some changes to the structure of the content, there will be the following additions and updates:

1. Information about citation building in countries other than the United States – I have rightly been blamed that the guide focuses too much on the case of the US. And I agree. That is why there will be many improvements that could be beneficial to Internet marketers and regular businesses from the following countries:

- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Germany

2. Extended coverage of the data aggregators and Google’s trusted data providers – both in the US, and in the other countries mentioned above.

3. Case studies – diving deeper into specific complicated cases and the ways my team and I untangled them.

4. Updated “List of Business Directories for the US” and newly added “List of Business Directories for Canada”. The updated one would include both more business directories, and more information about why particular directories are excluded from the list. Note that both these lists include the direct URLs to the submission page of each website.

5. More “Phone Verification Guides”, including Google (universal), Yelp (universal), Bing (US), Nokia (US), LocalEze (US), Citysearch (US), Yellowbot (US), Yellowee (US), iBegin (US, Canada), YellowPages.ca (Canada), WebLocal (Canada).

6. Updated “Fixing and Reporting Duplicate Listings”, including more than 30 of the most important business directories.

How the price will change

The price will be increased, unfortunately. However, the good news is that if you purchase the guide by 17 March, 11:59PM (Eastern Standard Time) it will be at its current price (US$30) and you will enjoy free updates forever. I am planning to be updating it and adding more information to it at least twice a year (and even more often, in case some major changes occur). But the good news don’t end here. If you purchase the guide and send request for additions that haven’t been covered yet by 3 March, 11:59PM (EST), I will include them in the updated version.

Who should get the guide

The Citation Building Guide is suitable for the following groups:

- Internet marketing (and especially inbound marketing) agencies and specialists – the guide could help you in developing an organized system to deal with tedious tasks such as citations research, competitive citation analysis, and brute ones such as citation submission and citation building; it could also help you in training new staff to complete such tasks;

- Small and medium businesses – if you have a website and a Google Local listing, and you are wondering where to start from in order to make them more visible and to potentially monetize them, the e-book will guide you through the process;

- Franchises and chains targeting locally multiple areas – organizing the workflow and determining task priority are two of the most difficult problems for companies with many locations that try to make all of them visible and at the same time keep their brand image consistent; these are the problems the guide could help solving.

And besides all mentioned, you would have my personal assistance available in case you have troubles of any sort with the guide or its content.

You could read more about it and purchase it here.

But first, a few notes:

1) This list is in reverse alphabetical order. Why? Because every other list is in old-school alphabetical order, and I’ve always felt a bit discriminated against (there are not really that many other last names that start with Z…).

2) I reached out to all the guys and gals mentioned below, and I got replies from many of them. However, for different reasons some did not get back to me with more information, so I did not include them in the article. Despite this I list them at the bottom, because I believe they are an important part of the local SEO world.

3) For everything to be as fair and square as possible, I decided to use the old “click to see” drop-down trick. Otherwise, it would have been very possible that 99% of the people would have given up before reaching even the middle of the page.

4) As most of the featured specialists are Americans and for accuracy purposes I will use the word “football” to describe the American variation of the sport, and the word “soccer” – for the European one.

And now – happy reading!

Other local SEO specialists I reached out to:

Gregg Stewart
Aleyda Solis
Chris “Silver” Smith
Ed Reese
Ash Nallawalla
Michael Mire
Adam Dorfman
Don Campbell
Martijn Beijk
Myles Anderson

Other local SEO specialists, I didn’t reach out to, without whom this article would be incomplete:

Adam Steele
Travis Van Slooten
Colan Nielsen
Joy Hawkins

Special thanks to Ken Fagan for serving as the editor of the article.

“… NAP consistency is important not just online, but real world. Not just signage, but in phone conversations. I expect, and so does our quality team, to hear the full and complete name of the business over the phone. When it is answered or when specifically asked.”

He also said that if the calling data quality moderator hears the business presenting themselves in even slightly different way from what is listed on their Google+ page, this might result in the moderator taking the decision to change the business name.

While I generally do agree that consistency should be observed both online and in the real world – for branding purposes to say the least, I see a major problems with such an approach: too much power is given to a single person to decide how to modify something of such importance for any business. I would be fine with that if I was convinced that the quality data moderator is as well-trained as possible. Unfortunately, I am not. On the contrary, there are hundreds of reports (here, here, here, and many others) of bad quality service by the quality moderators. The main issues reported are:

- Bad to incomprehensible English

- Generally rude behavior

- Lack of explanation of the reason for the calling

- And above all – mistakenly being recognized as telemarketers, mostly as a consequence of the above three problems

My advice: make sure that you, your customer service representatives, your secretary, and anyone who might be picking up your business phone, actually do pick up the phone call from 650-253-2000, because this IS Google Maps. And when you pick up make sure that you (or whoever picks) state the information as it should appear on Google Maps. If you are “Plumbing and Heating Dallas” on Google Places, then present yourself this way on the phone. If you haven’t hidden your address on Google Places, make sure you state that you DO serve clients at your business location. Otherwise there might be no salvation for you even if you are Andrew Shotland.

*Image courtesy of Andrew Shotland

1. Number of the top ranking direct competitors having listings coming from the citation source.

There are numerous ways to discover what citations your competitors have and you can do this either manually, or use some local SEO tool(s). The best covered countries are United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia.

2. Number of businesses from the same business line or the same locale being listed on the particular citation source.

I did a small-scale research on the topic some time ago, after which Darren Shaw and David Mihm did two larger-scale ones (by city and by category). Unfortunately, all these researches present data for the United States only.

3. General popularity of the site.

While this is hard to determine (sometimes even for Google), one way to look into the problem would be to see how often particular business directory is mentioned in high quality lists. I did a research on the subject some time ago.

4. History of containing structured business information.

If the website’s primary purpose is to store business information then what Google would be expecting to find while crawling it would be business information. This way the chances that the mention of your business would be picked up as a “citation” by the search engine would be higher.

5. Size of the business database.

While such information might be hard to find in some cases, the major business data providers do share it publicly. Bigger business database might mean both more complete overall business data, and higher trust points in Google’s “eyes”. One approach to solving this problem would be to look into how many of the website’s pages are indexed in the search engines. EZ Local have done a relevant research (for US directory sites only).

6. Distribution network.

Or how many other websites the business data is shared with. A large network would mean that listing your business on the main directory would result in it eventually showing up on hundreds of web properties. David Mihm has been doing incredible job sharing insights into these networks in the United States and Canada (for now).

7. Time for a citation to be picked up by Google.

There is little information on this subject in general, and Google is not really keen on sharing any. David Mihm and Mike Blumenthal have done an incredible research on this subject in the US context.

8. Overall web traffic to the directory.

Reliable and accurate data on this subject is hard to find. Andrew Shotland, using data from Compete, compiled a list based on the traffic to different US business directories.

9. Domain authority of the website.

Higher domain authority would be a another signal that particular website is reliable and has a good history in the search engines. Tools, such as Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder and Bright Local’s Citation Tracker measure this authority based on third-party data and own research work.

10. Availability of claiming and editing process.

Many business directories do not have automated (or any) processes in place for claiming or editing already existing listings. This is a potential prerequisite for lower quality business data, and such websites usually do not have (almost) any editorial staff.

11. Number of business information bits that could be added to a listing.

This is a factor that Google reportedly takes into account when determining the value and trustworthiness of a citation. It also makes sense from content richness point of view, because if the website allows for more business information to be added, it means that the chances for unique content on the page to be shared are higher.

Conclusion

Going back to the beginning of the article – my discussion with Ken was related to researching business directories in France (in case you missed it, I shared such researches for Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany) and the difficulty in determining which ones would be most important and most worth it. Following the points outlined above, and with a decent amount of research, this problem could be solved for practically every market in the world.

The horribleness of the customer service at Google, and especially the customer service for their free products is notorious and has a long and sad history. Google Places/Plus Local is one of those unfortunate products, which had to go a long way before getting the deserved attention on the support front. And while things are improving there, Google apparently still has a lot to do in terms of training their sales representatives. A user at the Local Search Forum shared an email from Google, which made a great impression on me. The email goes like this:

“I tried reaching you earlier to brief you on the Google Places Page.
If it’s easier, please call me at this number 1-877-503-0842 (ext. 23920) to discuss your Places Page.

Please Call DO NOT Respond to this email as it will not be received.

You need to reclaim you Google Places Page or it will be set for removal for having no ownership.

LOW ACTIVITY
NOTES
1)Your Google Places
Page:
Go to www.Google.com/Places
Then Click “Get Started Now” (Blue Button under the lady on the
right)
Sign in with your email account : Once your signed in take note of your Total Activity.
MAKE SURE: Your listing is up to date

Your Impressions vs. Actions
Impressions are how many people searching for keywords
related to your business and Actions how many people click specificly on your
business.

To help with your activity check out your Adwords Express right above your activity graphs.
You should’ve recive a credit in the mail for you to use to help build and gain eyes to your business.
If you haven’t recieved yours in the mail feel free to contact me back and I’ll get one re-generated for you.
Video’s below are to help you gain a little knowlege about what Adwords
Express is and does.

How to Set up Your Adwords Express

Google AdWords Express: Local online advertising made easy

What is AdWords Express?

AdWords Express Stories: Connecting to customers

There is a $100 Credit availible to you that I can provided for your AdWords Express, contact me back via phone if you would like to use it.
Otherwise you should have recived on via email at some point or in snail mail.
Call me at 1-877-503-0842 (ext. 23920) for any other questions you may
have.

Talk to you soon”

The fact that there is no link to any non-Google property, the links that are provided are not tracking ones, and the phone number provided is an official AdWords Express number, leads to the obvious conclusion that this email was indeed sent by a Google employee. And this is probably the first time I see a Google sales representative using threats (the listing will be set for removal) in a sales pitch.

Overall, the email is badly structured and formatted, and includes a few punctuation and spelling mistakes. The potential reason for the removal (having no ownership) is invalid, based on the feedback of the user who manages the listing. The guidance on how to check the “activity” on the listing (apparently “low activity” is the other potential reason for removal) is incorrect. The explanation on what “impressions” in the Google Places Analytics are is also inaccurate.

It is very possible that this is not a template email, but rather one that was created by that particular sales rep. However, the questions this case raises are valid:

- Is the quality of training at Google really that bad?
- Is Google really having such major financial problems financial problems that they are hiring inexperienced and potentially cheaper labor force?
- Is Google really having such major difficulties selling their paid products and hitting their targets that their sales representatives start using threats to pitch?

General Local-Search-Related
Onsite Local SEO
Offsite Local SEO
Google Places and Google+ Local
Local Citations and Citation Building
Reviews and Reputation Management for Local Search
Non-Google Local Search (Bing, Yelp, Apple, Nokia, Yahoo)
Mobile-Local

I also included a list of some of the articles I published this year that you might find read-worthy:

My Articles

This article library holds a ton of wealthy information shared by the most renowned specialists in the industry, including Mike Blumenthal, David Mihm, Phil Rozek, Chris Smith, Miriam Ellis, Andrew Shotland, and many others. Happy reading!

General Local-Search-Related

Local Search Ranking Factors, Volume 5 (David Mihm, Own Blog)

10 Commandments of Local Search & the LSO Prophets (Cody Baird, Milkmen)

Your Local SEO Checklist for 2012! (Miriam Ellis, Search Engine Guide)

Big List of Local SEO’s To Follow On Google+ Some Thoughts (Mike Ramsey, Nifty Marketing)

Interview with Local Marketing Experts Jake Puhl & Adam Zilko (Eric Covino, SEO Book)

Best Local Search Tools – 2012 (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Local Ranking Factors – Google Places Optimization (Bizible)

The Venice Shift from Local Pack to Blended Results (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Finders Are Now Seekers: How Local Has Changed the Game (Gregg Stewart, Clickz)

Local Search “Pros” Breaking the Hippocratic Oath (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Local SEO Tips from Darren Shaw of Whitespark (Eric Covino, SEO Book)

Essential Local Search Resources (Bryan Phelps, Whitespark)

Invisible Businesses In Google’s Local Search – The Problem No One Sees (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

The SMB Guide To Changing Business Names & SEO (Andrew Shotland, Search Engine Land)

The Long Tail of Local Search (Damian Rollison, Street Fight)

Deep Data and the Semantics of Local (Damian Rollison, Street Fight)

Who should care about Geo-Rankings and why? (Matt Roberts, Koozai)

How Can Local Search Better Serve Service-Oriented Businesses? (Damian Rollison, Street Fight)

Local Search Insights: What Are Consumers in Your Local Area Searching For? (Miranda Miller, Search Engine Watch)

50 Local SEO Lessons from 50 Clients (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

How Long Does Local-Search Visibility Take? (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Relocation, Relocation, Relocation – A “New” Local Ranking Tactic? (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

The Rudiments Of Local SEO (Miriam Ellis, SEO Igloo Blog)

Memo to Google: Solve the Local Data Problem With Local Data (Damian Rollison, Street Fight)

Google Local: Train Wreck at the Junction (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

What Matt Cutts Says about Local Search (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

The Local Search Ecosystem in Canada (David Mihm, Own Blog)

Laying the Groundwork for a Local SEO Campaign (Eric Covino, SEO Book)

Local SEO as a Gateway Service (Eric Covino, SEO Book)

2013′s Top Local Search Ranking Factor: Honesty (Miriam Ellis, SEO Igloo Blog)

Local Search Dream Team – Tips, Tools & Predictions (Bryan Phelps, SEO.com)

The Venice Shift from Local Pack to Blended Results (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

The Zen Of Local SEO (Miriam Ellis, SEO Igloo Blog)

Insiders Guide To Selecting The Right Local SEO Tools (Myles Anderson, Search Engine Land)

Local SEO “Substitutions” (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Matchmaking Advice for Local SEOs and Business Owners (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

How Google May Identify Implicitly Local Queries (Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea)

How Business Names Might be Used by Google in Local Search Ranking Signals (Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea)

Onsite Local SEO

Understand and Rock the Google Venice Update (Mike Ramsey, SEOmoz)

Local SEO: How Geotargeting Keywords Brought 333% More Revenue  (Adam Sutton, Marketing Sherpa)

The Local Search Plus Box (Nyagoslav Zhekov, Search Engine People)

Site audit: How can a local limousine service get found in dozens of cities? How can it stand out in the crowd? (Kathy Long, Own Blog)

The Hideous Site: An Allegory For Oddities In Local Search Results (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

The Anatomy of an Optimal Local Landing Page (Mike Ramsey, Nifty Marketing)

The Ugly State of Google SERPs: Rich Snippet Abuse (Mike Wilton, Search News Central)

How to Create Local Content for Multiple Cities (Matt McGee, Small Business SEM)

5 Local Blogging Ideas to Supercharge Your Local Marketing (Jessy Troy, Search Engine People)

13 Semantic Markup Tips For 2013: A Local SEO Checklist (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

Can Blogging Be Your Secret Weapon For Local SEO? (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

Using the Home Page to Improve Local Search Rankings (Chris Smith, Web Marketing Today)

Why Local Blogging Works (Matt McGee, Small Business SEM)

What Makes for a Good Author Photo in the Local Results? (Part 1) (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

What Makes for a Good Author Photo in the Local Results? (Part 2) (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Offsite Local SEO

How to Use Driving Directions in Local Search SEO for Google Places (Ted Ives, Coconut Headphones)

Are Check-Ins A Local Ranking Factor? (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

5 Local Linkbuilding Ideas For The Post-Penguin/Panda Era (Andrew Shotland, Search Engine Land)

Culture Building: 8 Local Link Building Tactics Beyond Business Listings (Scott Dodge, Whitespark)

The Complete Guide to Link Building with Local Events (Kane Jamison, SEOmoz)

Link Building for Local Search (Julie Joyce, Search Engine Watch)

The PlaceRank Secret Behind Google’s Local Search Rankings (Chris Smith, Web Marketing Today)

5 Link Building Tactics to Improve Your Local Ranking (Matt Green, SEOmoz)

SEO: 7 Ways To Optimize For Local Rankings Via Images (Chris Smith, Web Marketing Today)

Google Places and Google+ Local

A Brief History of Google Places (David Mihm, Own Blog)

Best Google Places Troubleshooting Posts (2011 – Early 2012) (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Interview With Google Places Help Forum Top Contributors: Blumenthal And Zhekov (Miriam Ellis, SEO Igloo Blog)

How to Pimp Your Google Places Listing (Phil Rozek, Whitespark Blog)

My Illustrated Plea To The Google Places Help Forum Team (Miriam Ellis, SEO Igloo Blog)

13 Best-Practices for Picking Google Places Business Categories (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Why You May Need To Hide Your Google Places Address ASAP (Miriam Ellis, SEOmoz)

The Face of Google Places (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

5 Things You Should Not Do on Google Places (Nyagoslav Zhekov, Search Engine People)

The Google Places Purgatory and How to Get Out of It (Matthew Hunt, Small Business Online Coach)

Milestones in a Google Places Campaign That’s Working (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

12-Week Action Plan for Google Places Visibility (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

The Worst Kept “Secret” in Local Search: My Thoughts on the Impending Plus-Places Merge (David Mihm, Own Blog)

Google Places Description and More Details Section – Some News and Pro Opinions from the Field (Linda Buquet, Catalyst eMarketing)

Rankings on Google+ Local: Some Observations (David Mihm, Own Blog)

Google + Local: Q’s and some A’s (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Google+ Local – What Wasn’t in the Announcement Was More Important Than What Was (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Helping Or Hurting: The Debate Over Google+ Local (Jordan Kasteler, Search Engine Land)

Overcoming New Google Places Duplicate Listing Problems for Dentists, Doctors, Attorneys (Linda Buquet, Catalyst eMarketing)

Syncing Your Google Plus and +Local Pages: Plusses and Minuses (David Mihm, Own Blog)

The Suite Life of Google Plus Local Address Issues (Joseph Henson, Search Influence)

Why You May Need To Hide Your Google Places Address ASAP (Miriam Ellis, SEOmoz)

Google Tackles Geographic (Map) Spam for Businesses (Bill Slawski, SEO by the Sea)

Google Places Troubleshooting: Best Practice for Dealing with a Merged Listing (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Many Google Places Searches Are Showing an Increased Radius For Search Results (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Is Google’s New Requirement to Hide a Home Business Appropriate? (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Google Places Pages Are No More – But What has Changed? (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

What Should Your Business Listing Categories Be in MapMaker (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

MapMaker Bots and What They Do (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

5 Google Places Tests I’d Love to See (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Local Citations and Citation Building

How to Squeeze Maximum Google Places Love from GetListed.org Scans (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

The Local Search Ecosystem in 2012 (David Mihm, Own Blog)

6 Tools SMBs Can Use to Update Digital Directory Listings (Stephanie Miles, Street Fight)

Citation Consistency: The Key to Local Search Rankings (Chris Suppa, Thunder SEO)

The Best Citation Sources by U.S. City (David Mihm & Darren Shaw, GetListed)

Best “Events” Sites for Local Search Citations, Links, and Visibility (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Local Citations: Another Signal Being Devalued by Google? (Mike Wilton, Search News Central)

Follow-up Study: The Best Citation Sources by Category (David Mihm & Darren Shaw, GetListed)

Can You Rank Well in Local Google without Revealing Your Street Address Anywhere? (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Will Citations Stop Being Effective for Local Optimization in the Future? (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

5 Ridiculously Sneaky Citations Most Small Business Never Think to Get! (Matthew Hunt, Small Business Online Coach)

Infographic: Citations – Time To Live (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

The Role of Directories in the New Local Ecosystem (Damian Rollison, Street Fight)

Local Search: Understanding ‘Citations’ to Improve Rankings (Chris Smith, Web Marketing Today)

My Thoughts on Where Yext Fits Into a Local Search Marketing Plan (David Mihm, Own Blog)

SBSM Mailbag: Does Google Normalize NAP Data? (Name, Address, Phone) (Matt McGee, Small Business SEM)

Catching Up with your Local Competitors & Automating Citation Discovery (John-Henry Scherck, Seer Interactive)

Yext & Local SEO (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Can a Citation Campaign Cause a Drop in Google Local Rankings? (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Local Citations / Business Directories for Specific Ethnicities and Identities (US) (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Reviews and Reputation Management for Local Search

Cold Hard Numbers on How Third-Party Reviews Help Google Places Rankings (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

21 Ways to Get Customer Reviews: the Ultimate List (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Local Consumer Review Survey 2012 – Part 2 (Myles Anderson, Search Engine Land)

What Should You Tell A Client When Google Loses Their Reviews – A 4 Part Plan (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Google Places Reviews – Critically Broken or Chronically Ignored? (Linda Buquet, Catalyst eMarketing)

Cheat Codes for Google+Local Customer Reviews (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Google on Reviews: Asking for them is OK, Soliciting them is BAD (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Asking for Reviews (Post Google Apocalypse) (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

FAQ about Local-Business Reviews (on Google+Local and Third-Party Sites) (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

9 Questions To Assess Your Review Management Stress Levels (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Have You Been The Target Of A Google Places Hit Job? (Andrew Shotland, Search Engine Land)

The Local Business Reviews Ecosystem (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

Non-Google Local Search (Bing, Yelp, Apple, Nokia, Yahoo)

Yellow Pages Sites Beat Google In Local Data Accuracy Test (Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land)

5 “Local” Search Engines You Should Be Targeting (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

Bing Ties Yellow Pages Sites For Most Accurate Local Data (Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land)

IYP Ranking Factors: Getting Visible in Local-Biz Directories (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

10 Basic Bing Local Optimization Tips (Chris Smith, Search Engine Land)

Unofficial Apple Maps Frequently Asked Questions by Businesses (Andrew Shotland, Apple Maps Marketing)

How to Find Local Business Customers in Twitter (Kathy Long, Own Blog)

Yelp Ranking Factors (Phil Rozek, Local Visibility System)

6 Things to Know About the Yelp-Bing Local Data Partnership (Matt McGee, Small Business SEM)

Local SEO Blocking and Tackling for Siri & Apple Maps (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Is Google’s Australian Data Partner Spamming Places for $11 a Listing? (Mike Blumenthal, Own Blog)

Mobile-Local

The Rise Of Local Mobile Pay-Per-Call – 3 Tips For SMBs (Bill Dinan, Search Engine Land)

Why It’s Time For Local SMBs To Get On Board With Mobile (Stephanie Hobbs, Search Engine Land)

My Articles

Interview with Dan Austin, a Google Maps Spam Fighter

Thoughts on Bizible’s Local Ranking Factors

Changes in Local Search – Implications on Local SEO

The Real Meaning of the Google Places Statuses

8 Ways to Recognize Fake Google Reviews

Local Citation Building Study Part 1: Niche-Relevant Local Citation Sources

Google Plus Local Rankings – What Changed and What Will Change

Local Citation Building Study Part 2: What the Pros Think

Local Citation Building Study Part 3: Plenitude of the Business Data

Local Citation Building Study Part 4: Local Business Directories Around the World (Canada and the UK)

Google+ Local vs. Map Maker. Is Your Business Eligible?

Local Citation Building Tools

Google with the Most Accurate Business Database in the UK

The Two Types of Local Search and How Local SEO Should Reflect Them

Local Citation Sources for Australia, Germany, and New Zealand

Why Yext Might Not Be the Best Fit for Your Business

Overcoming Google Local Listing Mergers with Additional Citations

How to Remove Duplicate Listings from Different Business Directories

Learning Local SEO from the Ones That Do It Best

How Google Might Be Determining If A Local Citation Is Spammy or Not

- By measuring the “frequency of occurrence” of each phrase/element of the citation

- By measuring the “trustworthiness” of each source

I will not dabble further into the explanations of how each of these two factors are counted and how the whole system works, but I’d rather focus on the practical implications.

What It Tackles

Google obviously would like to present the most accurate and complete information to its users. This is possible only if it obtains this information from as many sources as possible. However, some of these sources might sometimes provide inaccurate or even spammy information, so Google needs methods to find it. Some obvious examples of information Google would rather completely disregard are telephone number in the business name, mentions of words such as “discount”, “sales”, etc. In other cases it might be more difficult for Google to understand if particular content is correct or not. An example would be “[Business Name] in [City]“, or even worse – “[City] [Business Name]” (as in Miami Printing, which is the actual name of a real business).

The patent gives examples mostly related to the category of the business, but I believe the practical implications are mostly related to the business name. It is a known and widely approved fact that the business name plays role in how Google ranks the local search results (see factors #15 and #22 here). That is why over the years many have adopted the bad practice (intentionally or not) to add extraneous keywords to the business name in their Google local listings. When Google started getting stricter, the “practitioners” (predominantly black hat SEOs) got smarter and started creating citations with the business name including the keywords. That way the third-party data would support the information the “business owner” submits via Google Places.

The Threats

Reading through the patent, two major threats occur in my mind:

1) The main one is that Google seems to rely a lot (probably too much) on information coming from “trusted sources” (according to the patent a source can be designated “as a trusted source based on, for example, a reputation of the source or previous dealings with the source or combinations of them”). This means that it is theoretically possible that if a source is trustworthy enough, it is possible that Google might take the information from this source for granted and would never disregard it or check its accuracy. Examples of such sources would be LocalEze and Infogroup/CityGrid in the USA, and YellowPages.ca in Canada. Translated in local SEO language this means that it is possible that if a listing is added to LocalEze (for example) and the same business information is not found anywhere else on the web, Google might still create a new listing using this information. This obviously opens up a big hole in the described system, because Google would be very dependent on such third-party trusted sources. And it is important to mention that many of these potentially trusted sources have close to no mechanisms for checking the authenticity of the business information added to their databases (other than phone verifications, which is an insufficiently reliable method).

2) My other concern is related to businesses that actually do have such words (regarded as spam) in their business names, websites, or even physical addresses. How Google has historically been dealing with such situations is they were withholding the activation of a listing that contains such words (the biggest publicly available list of these is here) and they have manually been verifying the accuracy of the information. However, according to the patent even words such as city names could be considered spammy, which opens up a broad field for false positives.

What This Means from Local SEO Point of View

As mentioned above, there are two main factors taken into account – trustworthiness and frequency. While the patent doesn’t discuss these factors in regards with organic search rankings, it could be assumed that similar methodology is used when determining the value of citations and how business listings are ranked. This means that we could distinguish between two types of local citation sources:

1. Qualitatively-important – such as the aforementioned LocalEze, Infogroup, CityGrid, Yellowpages, etc.

2. Quantitatively-important – either less authoritative or less-probable-to-be-citation-sources sources.

To have a strong “citation profile”, you must cover the first type of sources, and just after this you should proceed with looking for further volumes and opportunities. At the same time while 2. could be useless without 1., 1. would be (in many cases) insufficient without 2.

Conclusive Words

I believe Google has been using this (or similar) method to detect and disregard spammy information coming from third-party sources at least for some time. Nevertheless, the patent comes to shed further light on the systems Google adopts to find, compile, and process business information.