SearchInfluence

Forget Facebook: 4 Reasons Your Company Needs a Google+ Page — Inc.com

While some discouraging stats about the use of Google+ have emerged in recent days, there’s no reason to give up the ghost just yet — particularly with the recent introduction of G+ business pages. If you’re hesitating to jump into the pool and establish your business on G+, linger no longer — Inc.com’s Abram Brown is here to give you the skinny on why getting in early is a smart move for small businesses and mega-corporations alike.

Content Marketing Essentials: Tactical Advice From A To Z — Search Engine Land

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.”

I’ve just published a longer article on the Yelp Review Filter, what it is, how to manage it and, of course, how to spam it.

Since I wanted to make it a page rather than a post it doesn’t have comments so I’m putting up this post to collect comments.

Are you a business who is stinging from being Yelped? Tell us about it and we’ll do a follow up blog post with the best stories.

And even if you’re not a business owner I’d love to hear your opinion of the Yelp Review Filter in the comments.

When Google introduced HotPot, the Foursquaresque recommendation engine based on social results, it was hailed as a seamless integration of Yelp-style reviews and uniquely Google functionality. We’ve already discussed its simple ethos of personalized recommendations based on friends’ and peers’ reviews, furthering the “social results are relevant results” direction that the company seems to be heading in. HotPot’s paper showings were a resounding success, moving the reviews coming in from Google users from a mere 3 percent to 20 (as opposed to second-hand aggregated reviews from Yelp and its army of clones). However, the G-team has recently announced the merger of HotPot into Places. Is this a smart move on Google’s part? What kind of practical changes are we likely to see?