February 2012
1 post
The Bruce Clay, Local Paid Inclusion & UBL...
Along with many others, I’ve been following the “Local Paid Inclusion” kerfuffle involving Bruce Clay with some interest, and I’ve finally decided to post this comment about the story. Disclosure: I’m on the current Board of Advisors for a company that’s been frequently mentioned along with the story — Universal Business Listing (a.k.a. “UBL”), so I do have […] Related posts:
* Guest Post...
January 2012
2 posts
Email Marketers Wake Up To Ideograms
I was noticing in my email this morning that a few different pieces of spam had much more eye-catching, decorative subject lines: As you can see above, one email note for “magicJack Plus” included a little telephone symbol, while another one for printer ink included a little fountain pen nib symbol at the begining of […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/16zpJH
Google’s Geology Logo
I thought the Google logo commemorating the birthday of Nicolas Steno, popularly known as “The Father of Geology”, was a particularly effective logo treatment: The 3-D letters which are made to communicate the concept of cut-away views of earth sections to show layers of rock and sediment were effortless-seeming in their execution. This is a […] Related posts:
* Have Google Logos Jumped...
December 2011
1 post
Wendy’s New Burger Is Fatter – Product Development...
In September, Wendy’s apparently formally launched their new line of hamburgers – cheeseburgers, in fact – after working for around two years on evolving their product recipe, according to news reports. Not normally prone to following or reading news about fast food, my first discovery of the new “Project Gold Hamburger” was a negative interaction […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/yh5kN
November 2011
3 posts
New Google Maps Ads Bad For All Constituents:...
Google Maps has introduced “bubble ads” which feature an advertiser in the info bubble/tooltip that appears above pinpointed locations in the map interface. Mike Blumenthal points these out with a “rogue’s gallery” of inappropriate ad placements. It’s not hard to find instances of ads which arguably should not be allowed to be displayed smack along […] Related posts:
* Google Maps Hates...
The Occupy Protesters Google-Bombed Maps
The Atlantic Wire reported that Occupy Oakland protesters managed to get the name of Frank H. Ogawa Plaza to be changed in Google Maps to “Oscar Grant Plaza” — the name they dubbed it in remembrance of a man killed by BART police on New Years in 2009. After media began noticing the unofficial name appearing […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/vMMX1
Infogroup’s New Directory Poses SEO Challenge To...
Infogroup‘s Monday announcement of enhancements for their Express Update service mainly focused upon how they could help businesses claim their listings, optimize through an expanded set of data points, and submit their information to the Infogroup database. But, the press release also contained an unhappy surprise for Internet Yellow Pages companies: declaration that Infogroup is […] No...
October 2011
2 posts
Google’s Jack-O’-Lantern Logo Celebrating...
Google’s Jack-O’-Lantern logo celebrating Halloween this year is particularly cool: It combines two-dimensional logo design, sculpting, and performance art, since it is a video showing the Google team sketching their designs on the jumbo-sized pumpkins, carving them, hanging out with each other, and then the jackolanterns are lit as dusk is falling, until you ultimately […] Related posts:
...
Will Google Use Spelling & Grammar As Ranking...
Google’s Webmaster Help video by @MattCutts about spelling and grammar is quite interesting: In it, Matt answers the question of whether spelling/grammer matter to them when they evaluate a site’s quality for ranking purposes. I wrote about this exact thing in “Google Penalty For Low-Quality Writing?” over a year ago, and some commenters thought the […] Related posts:
* Thoughts On Local...
September 2011
8 posts
Whole Foods’ Sponsored Corn Field Maze
I’ve written a few times about corn field mazes which can be seen using Google Maps – enter the newest “skyvertisement” promoting Whole Foods: It’s not the first time “crop art” or corn field maze designs have been used to promote a company. Whole Foods’ does have a coolness factor and logic to it, since the […] Related posts:
* Corn Maze Memorializes Deadliest Catch Captain Harris
*...
Google Maps: New Changes, New Errors
Matt McGee’s news piece on SEL caught my eye this morning, reporting that Google Maps now sports a new look and feel. The change was apparently announced late yesterday on the Google LatLong blog (I have to agree with Matt’s aside, their blog redesign is not an improvement). The change comes after a few weeks of […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/nmC8X
Facebook’s New Place Discovery Feature – A.K.A....
Facebook has recently been rolling out new features and layouts, willy-nilly, risking the ire of many users who may be getting upgrade fatigue. One of the many changes I noticed was a new feature intended to leverage users into promoting “great places” more when they “Like” a location: Wasn’t just having Likes appearing on your […] Related posts:
* Google Maps Labs “What’s Around Here?”...
Google Scaling-Down Local Results? Possible...
People have reported seeing the “7-pack”, or local integrated listings under Universal/Place Search, in Google SERPs less in the past few days (reported on Search Engine Roundtable and WebmasterWorld). I’m seeing some similar cases where local queries are not invoking the business listings as I would’ve expected previously (such as for “Memphis locksmiths”). So far, one […] No related posts....
Amazon’s Daily Deals Is Yet Another Flirtation...
It’s almost, but not quite, shocking to me that Amazon has launched another experiment into local business marketing with the Amazon Local daily deals service. I just got an email promotion for Dallas-Fort Worth area from them this morning: Amazon apparently uses LivingSocial, with which they are an investment partner, to power this service, and […] Related posts:
* Yellowbook’s Weforia:...
Google Plus Snippets Launch In Google Maps
I happened to see Greg Sterling briefly at SMX East today, and he alerted me that Google announced that they’ve launched “+snippets” for Maps, allowing users to share Google Maps pages with their friends in Google+: Could this be what the “big changes planned for Google Maps” rumor I earlier reported was referring-to? I’m not […] Related posts:
* Rumored Google Maps Changes Could Involve...
Drop In Major IYP Traffic
According to Google Trends, it appears there may have been a significant drop in traffic from Google referrals to major Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) sites: Yellowpages.com, Superpages.com, Yelp.com, Citysearch.com, and WhitePages.com all look like they’re dipping in sync. Is it possible that IYPs have fallen under the treads of a Panda update? It’s still perhaps […] No related posts....
Rumored Google Maps Changes Could Involve Google+
Over the weekend, I received a credible rumor from one of the larger companies I work with. Purportedly, they were contacted by their Google Ads rep and urged to purchase more advertising now, inadvance of some “big changes” planned to happen on October 1. It’s still early, and I haven’t been able to confirm this […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/lDqyF
July 2011
2 posts
Guest Post At Bruce Clay’s Blog: 10 Image SEO Tips
I was excited to be invited to write a guest piece over at Bruce Clay Inc’s blog this week, and my article on “10 Image Optimization Tips for Local SEO“ provides a few ideas to help further enhance a small business’s local search signals. Bruce Clay is of course a well-known and well-established technical search marketing […] Related posts:
* Poor Taste: Lay Off 100s Of Employees, Then...
Google’s New Content Delivery Network (CDN)
I posted a piece about Google’s new “Page Speed Service” over on SEM Clubhouse this morning, and in it I describe a bit of how it will speed up websites and thus help with both SEO and user-experience. Those are mostly good things. But, I go on to compare it a little with old AOL […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/d48C4
June 2011
3 posts
Internet Company Getting Its Name Into Google Maps
Quite a few sites have reported on how Shiv Nagar, a village in India, has renamed itself “SnapDeal.com Nagar”, out of gratitude to the company which paid to give them running water. But, I don’t think anyone’s reported on how this is going to give SnapDeal.com a free mapvertisement in Google Maps and Bing Maps. […] Related posts:
* NY Artist Molly Dilworth Seeks Fame Through Painting In...
Google Maps Hates Small Businesses By Launching...
Google has just announced that they’ve launched “Descriptive Terms” to appear with business listings in map search results. According to them, these descriptive terms are some of the most common terms found in user reviews, blogs, web pages and other online references which describe the business. For instance, if you search for “Barbeque Restaurants”, you might see […] Related posts:
*...
Penises Invade Google Maps ♂
So, we’ve seen UFOs in Google Maps, illegal activites, marriage proposals, earth art, and more. Since I’ve reported on all sorts of cool things to see in Google Maps (including corn field mazes, advertisements, and more), I’ve decided to also report on the latest — a juvenile prank that’s now gotten a lot more publicity […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/VsPdW
May 2011
2 posts
Locksmith Spam Listing Issue
I recently wrote a piece about how to bite back at local scam businesses over at Natural Search Blog, but one of the more difficult variety of scams are the faux local business listings that Google Places fights. And, ever since people first began scamming listing rankings in print yellow pages, the worst sector affected […] Related posts:
* Univeral Business Listing (UBL) User Conference...
White House Situation Room Photo Accidentally...
The photo released by the White House depicting President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden along with members of the national security team during a briefing on the mission to capture or kill terrorist Osama Bin Laden is rapidly rocketing up to becoming the most-viewed photo on Flickr of all time: The photo is […] Related posts:
* Did TechCrunch’s Leaked Image Expose Their Google...
April 2011
1 post
How To Get A Screen Grab From An Android Phone
I was writing an article this week for my upcoming Locals Only column at Search Engine Land, and I experienced the mildly flummoxing issue of being unable to take screen grabs from my Android phone (I use an HTC Thunderbolt ‘droid) to use as examples in the article. I followed the instructions found on a few webpages and […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/P98dP
March 2011
3 posts
Lock & Door Contractor Blames SuperMedia Yellow...
The Morning Call in Pennsylvania reports about how “Always In Service”, a lock and door company, have run afoul of customers and the state’s attorney general office. In fact the attorney general’s office is suing them alleging the company misled customers into believing it was near their homes; charged more than estimated prices; failed to provide itemized […] Related posts:
* What’s...
NY Artist Molly Dilworth Seeks Fame Through...
The Atlantic reported this past week on how one artist in New York, Molly Dilworth has been working to get her rooftop mural paintings picked up by the satellite imagery so that they may appear in Google Earth and Google Maps. The article reports how long the lagtime is between when the satellite and aerial photos in Google Earth are […] Related posts:
* Earth Art Collection From Google...
Google Site Blocking Feature – An Assault On SEO?
During this week’s SMX West conference, Google announced a new feature whereby searchers may block domains from appearing in their search results: The part of Google’s announcement which grabbed more attention from search engine optimization experts is this statement from the end of the post: “…while we’re not currently using the domains people block as […] Related posts:
* Google Maps...
February 2011
5 posts
Google Instant Previews Ironically Leaves Out...
Google’s Instant Preview feature, which allows one to click on a little magnifying-glass icon in search results in order to see how webpages appear, doesn’t support Google Maps, YouTube, nor Flash interfaces. For instance, here’s the Map page from Elvis Presley’s Graceland website: Yet, in Google Instant Preview, the main graphic element of the map […] Related posts:
* New Years Wish:...
Voynich Manuscript News
In the last week, BoingBoing caught my eye by reporting how University of Arizona researchers have announced a new piece of information discovered about the Voynich Manuscript. For those who don’t know, the Voynich Manuscript is one of the world’s biggest mysteries and most-interesting books of all time. Trick is, no one can read it. […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/Gfs3x
AT&T Opens Mobile App Incubator In Texas
The Dallas News reports that AT&T has officially opened a new center in Plano, Texas, to help mobile app developers create and launch their work. “The AT&T Foundry in Plano is a slick, high-tech workspace designed to connect developers with experts already employed at the telecommunications giant.” Plano is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. […] No related posts....
Google’s Steampunk Logo
Google has launched a logo that is designed in Steampunk style, to celebrate the birthdate of Victorian-era Science Fiction writer, Jules Verne: I have a particular affinity for all things Steampunk, so I love this logo treatment. If you don’t know what “Steampunk” is, Wikipedia says it’s a sub-genre of Science Fiction, often executed as […] Related posts:
* Google’s Earth Art Logo
*...
Hypercube!
Okay, I really want one of these — it’s a 17 x 17 x 17 Rubic’s Cube style puzzle: The puzzle is by Oskar van Deventer, and it can be found here. I’ll risk exposing how geeky I am by explaining that the original Rubic’s Cube became a super-popular pop culture icon back when I […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/FpvQB
January 2011
19 posts
Yellowbook Layoff
I continue to hear rumors and rumblings of big changes in the yellow pages industry, and it seems like almost anything could happen in terms of restructuring, mergers and acquisitions. I just learned of a layoff at Yellowbook over the weekend — according to the news report they are saying they’ll cut 70 jobs, nationwide. […] Related posts: * What’s Happening In Yellow Pages Land? Perhaps A...
Univeral Business Listing (UBL) User Conference
I’m looking forward to attending the Universal Business Listing (“UBL”) User Conference today in Charlotte, NC. It was particularly exciting to visit with friends such as Mike Blumenthal and to get to meet Sebastien Provencher for the first time in person! I don’t know yet if I’ll have an opportunity to post updates on the […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/F3YdC
University Introduces Foursquare Collegiate Badges
Texas A&M University has just launched the Collegiate Badge program on Foursquare, and since I was in College Station earlier last week for a family celebration, I thought I’d check it out. I feel a little shiver of pride that my alma mater is the third university after Harvard and Stanford to launch an official partnership with […] Related posts: * Foursquare Heat Maps...
SuperMedia & Dex One Layoffs
A few people internally at SuperMedia’s Superpages have pinged me this week to let me know of a larger layoff that happened yesterday at the company – reportedly 300 or more employees, primarily in the Internet Sales Division, were layed-off. I’m surprised Dallas Morning News hasn’t reported on it. Dex One is apparently also planning to lay off […] Related posts: * What’s Happening In Yellow...
Sudbury Hydro Inc Merger? Be Careful What Your...
I find this slightly amusing – looking over my Google Analytics for this blog, I ran across someone who’d typed into Google the keyword phrase, “writing a memo to employees advising them of a merge”. That’s not all that surprising since I’ve been writing about a theoretical merger between AT&T, SuperMedia, and Dex One yellow pages […] Related posts: * Poor Taste: Lay Off 100s Of...
Squeezing PageRank from Photos & Images
I’ve written a number of times about how one can leverage images to get more promotional value and links. Here’s another example today, from a blog post on 1800RECYCLING.com: Ten Recycled Ship Houses. The writer of this post contacted me a while back to get permission to use one of my photos (of a house […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/Dkzbp
Google’s Earth Art Logo
Google Israel has a logo for celebrating Tu Bishvat. Barry Schwartz explains that the Tu Bishvat (פרוייקט ההר הירוק) holiday is known as the “New Year of the Trees”, and to observe it many people will plant new trees or donate trees in Israel. (The associated Google search for the logo goes to “Green Mountain […] Related posts: * Google’s Happy Birthday Logo * Have Google Logos Jumped The...
Foursquare Heat Maps
This is a pretty cool graphic interface I came across thanks to Giovanni Gallucci — it’s for checking out your Foursquare usage data: Where Do You Go. It displays your checkins using heat maps: The Google Maps mashup was built using Foursquare’s API, Python, and the Google APP Engine. I think it likely works better in Chrome […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/DZDKQ
Australian YP Telstra Fighting As Legal Underdog...
The Aussie yellow pages company, Telstra, is continuing to fight hard to protect their claim that yellow pages business directories can be copyrighted. Judges found last year that directories were no longer covered by copyright because their creation and maintenance was computerized. Copyright of phonebook directory information has always been on shaky ground, since facts themselves generally...
Yellow Pages Argues Seattle Law Limiting...
As you may be aware, Seattle passed an ordinance in October which required yellow pages print directory companies to pay for an annual license and to allow consumers to opt-out of receiving print yellow pages phonebooks from being delivered to their properties. The Yellow Pages Association filed a motion in federal court last week, seeking […] Related posts: * Yellow Pages Opt-Out Not...
City Centroids Replaced By Outlines In Google...
I’ve often mentioned how Google Maps/Places has used distance from city centroids as a major ranking factor. Indeed, Google still mentions how distance is a local ranking factor (most recently they stated this in a LatLong blog post on how local search ranking works). However, there is some compelling evidence to show that they’ve become […] No related posts. http://dlvr.it/DVctV
Trust Seals May Be Super Local Ranking Factors
Over on SEM Clubhouse this morning I posted an article about how online trust seals could increase conversions for local businesses. That proposition is not all that controversial, when you connect the dots. Lots of research finds support for the idea that trust seals increase consumer confidence for online retailers — and online retailers need this, […] Related posts: * Thoughts On Local...
The iPhone Comes To Verizon Finally!
So, my prediction that the iPhone was coming to Verizon has finally panned out as the official Verizon Wireless iPhone page is now live! The CDMA iPhone was confirmed at a press conference hosted by Verizon at the Lincoln Center in New York today. The planned arrival comes just a hair late for me. As […] Related posts: * Will Verizon Get The iPhone? A Former Insider’s Prediction...
Local Search Technology “Patent Troll” Expands...
A recent post by a member on WebmasterWorld alerted me that GeoTag is widening their local search technology lawsuits to include many more companies. WebmasterWorld sharply limits forum members from mentioning particular links, but I think the member was referring to this GeoTag Inc. v. Royal Purple Inc. et al patent suit. The WebmasterWorld forum […] http://dlvr.it/Cs1bP
Poor Taste: Lay Off 100s Of Employees, Then Write...
In a blog that SuperMedia operates to provide advice and information for businesses, they published this surreal post on “Employee Retention During a Corporate Restructure” at the end of December. SuperMedia has been laying-off employees in droves over the past two years, as they struggled through revenue decline, heavy debts, Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, and subsequent […]...
McAfee Labs Lists Geolocation Services As Top...
On December 28th, McAfee Labs unveiled their 2011 Threat Predictions Report, and they’ve listed Geolocation Services as one of the top targets for cybercriminal activity in 2011. Geolocation services particularly include services involving check-in activities which publish your location. Geolocation services include Facebook now, as well as Twitter, Foursquare and Gowalla. From my perspective,...
R.I.P. Bookmarking Services
The year 2010 may have marked the demise of social media bookmarking services. Quite a few bookmark sharing services were discontinued last year. Simpy, Gnolia, and Backflip were just some of the best-known ones. In their heyday, some of these services may have been considered to be the next big thing in online social media […] http://dlvr.it/CjgvX