Comments on: Trusted Reviewers Impact on Google Maps / OneBox

By: MiriamEllis

MiriamEllis — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:03:05 +0000

Hi Tim,
Hey, that’s very interesting about the phone number. Is that something you’ve written or read about? I’d like to read up on that!
Miriam

By: Tim Coleman

Tim Coleman — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 21:43:49 +0000

Thanks Will… you’re exactly right with the widget thing, that’s much of I what I see written about. Less is written about local service businesses. And these businesses are getting squeezed by fragmentation online and off!!!

Keep up the good work.

By: Will Scott

Will Scott — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 04:03:31 +0000

Tim,

Thanks a lot for dropping in. I’ve been enjoying your posts and the recent discussion on your blog.

And, I love the premise “Convert Offline”. It’s easy to see the online conversion. I click submit, you ship a widget. But for so much of the core Yellow Pages customer base yet to make the switch to internet marketing it’s all about proving the conversion offline.

Keep up the good work and I’m glad to have your input on this project — spawned by your investigation.

I’m just bummed that we can’t start in earnest until after the New Year!

And, to your point above, given the core dataset is Acxiom or another traditional listing source you’re probably right. In fact, it was you who posited AllPages.com is most authoritative given their only update mechanism is those traditional sources. Hopefully we’re getting past that.

Will

By: Tim Coleman

Tim Coleman — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:36:29 +0000

This is awesome Will, like Miriam, I will immediately add to my reader, so as to miss anything.

Miriam, believe it or not, I think the age of the phone number (listed date with telco) is more important than the age of the site. At least until other factors… links, reviews etc…. kick-in.

By: MiriamEllis

MiriamEllis — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:07:11 +0000

Hi Will,
Well, that’s pretty good…it’s only a scale of 11 months between all 3 sites, so really, not any huge gap anywhere. Great test subjects, really. And wonderful that your clients have agreed to participate. I can hardly wait to see what you come up with on this.
Miriam

By: Will Scott

Will Scott — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:33:11 +0000

Miriam,

It’s my pleasure. I try to demystify this stuff as best I can and your post did that elegantly. You made a tricky concept approachable without “dumbing”.

To your question above:

Subject 1: June 17, 06 (seo: medium well, though untouched for a while)
Subject 2: February 9, 06 (seo: medium rare)
Subject 3: December 7, 06 (seo: still in refrigerator)

So, they should all be out of the sandbox, with none crusty enough to really blow the curve. Since subject 3 is at an SEO disadvantage, we’re going to throw a little on-page her way for free for talking part in our experiment.

I hope to make future posts worthy of your reader

By: MiriamEllis

MiriamEllis — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:02:39 +0000

Hi Will,
Boy, am I adding you to my feedreader! I’m really looking forward to your followups on this experiment.

One metric I’d be interested in seeing added to your spreadsheet of the 3 clients would be the age of their websites. In trying to determine exactly how a trust rank of sorts figures in all of this, I keep wondering if, in addition to the trustworthiness of the review, local rankings might, in some degree, take into account the age of the site – just as organic rankings do.

Thanks so much for linking to my Google Reviews Review. I had fun writing that.
Miriam

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:44:41 +0000

That looks like an excellent experiment. I’ll look forward to finding out about the results

By: David Mihm

David Mihm — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:41:46 +0000

Will, Looking forward to seeing the results. I can’t think of anything you’ve missed; the methodology seems sound.