SearchInfluence

Google has a crackerjack team of people helping to make their products bigger and better all the time, or at least, that’s the impression we get from them. I just might have caught an embarrassing typo in Google Docs last week, but otherwise, they seem to be pretty much on the ball. That is, unless you visit their Places page, which apparently is hot to show you photos of women’s bare breasts and much more — if the place you’re looking for happens to be a cosmetic surgeon’s office.

Google is feeding local business owners to the wolves with their latest Places update. Lior Ron, Google Places Product Manger, announced yesterday evening that Google will be “helping” business owners keep their business listings updated by now allowing anyone, mischievous competitors included, to edit your entire Places listing for you. Yes, even if it is verified.

How… thoughtful of Google.

Google has had a busy year. The launch of “Facebook killer” Google+ surely had many of their available hands busy, but apparently not too busy to keep working on acquisitions: It was announced today that Google has purchased Zagat, the well-known publisher of restaurant and business ratings.

Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Local, Maps and Location Services for Google, shared in a Google blog post that she was “thrilled” to announce the acquisition. She says: “Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world.”

Our current goal is to improve an international client’s local rankings for their collection of Playa del Carmen hotels and condos. Now, if this would have been a U.S. or Canadian based client, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post, but taking local SEO to the land of the Aztecs and the Mayas certainly added a twist of lime to my typical local cocktail. The local SEO landscape of Mexico hasn’t been as thoroughly developed as it’s other North American neighbors. To give you an idea of how uncharted this territory is, Google Maps is still in beta testing for Mexico. This means there is a good deal of room for error, so you have to make sure to bring your A-game.

We’re back with another 5 for Friday, a collection of the freshest and tastiest SEO news stories, blogs and recommendations from across the web!

Google’s Spam Report Page Gets “Biggest Refresh” In Years — Search Engine Land

The Webmaster Tools spam report form has been completely updated and refreshed, heralding the biggest change to the feature in a good 10 years. There are now several discrete forms for different kinds of spam instead of one catch-all field, with options for “paid links” and “malware” among other specific spam issues.

The 3 Pillars of Local Search Reviews — Search Engine Journal