SearchInfluence

Happy Friday everyone! It’s been quite a while since we’ve done this little series, here, but we’ve been meaning to bring it back. Well, after a quiet week of non-blogging, we thought this would be as good a time as any. So without further ado, I bring you the triumphant return of Top 10… err, 5 for the Weekend!

The 5 Critical Social Media Skills You Need to Disperse

Google is rolling out a nationwide update that drastically changes the way prospective customers see you and your competitors through what Google calls “Place Search.”

The new integrated results combine your organic and local rankings in a new Google algorithm intended to make finding businesses easier.

Old results:

New results:

A site which ranks well organically (below the map) has always had a better chance of ranking on the map. Those who weren’t strong organically could sneak on the map provided a low level of competition.

I had a team member send out a red flag email about a client’s Maps listing 2 hours ago.  We had successfully squashed a listing created by a competitor who had been spamming with our guy’s business name, but today, it suddenly appeared again, and our guy’s real listing completely disappeared!

I know Google lost an entire city in Florida, which has now been found, but as we dig into it today, this looks like the entire East coast data is in an upheaval.

Google Maps… the Local Business Center… Google Places… so many faces, so many problems. While it brings me great happiness once an issue is resolved, when trying to work them out, it seems like it’s never going to end. In the past, I’ve used a puzzle as an analogy for local search. I never really did like puzzles, and if Google Maps was a puzzle it would be a 2,000 piece box full of 1 inch pieces, 50 of which have been eaten by your kitten and thrown about the house by your children.

So today while working with a particularly problematic listing within a particularly jacked up (for lack of a better word) market and cluster of listings, I noticed a new option Google is showing in the “Report a Problem” section.

We worked for months to straighten out a client’s listing and were finally feeling a bit of relief when everything seemed to be working… the address was showing up correctly, as was the URL, pictures, and details. Thank goodness, we thought!