The Google Local Business Center offers advertisers a way to geographically authenticate themselves and then select an appropriate category for their business listing. Google Maps takes data from various sources including Acxiom which provides data for many of the phone directory type websites. Taking a look at the categories available categories on allpages.com (which is [...]
Local Search
There's a lot of work going on in this area and I think there's going to be a lot of interesting developments in 2007. Google has a bit of a problem right now with its data sources, normalization and integration with AdWords, but its only a matter of time before they figure it out and dominate local search.
Posted Wednesday, February 21st, 2007.
Posted Friday, February 2nd, 2007.
Edit (Aug 25 2009) I haven’t kept track of how Google handles categories in their Local Business Center for quite a while. I just received a great email from Maxou in France letting me know that Google’s method to select business categories has changed, you can now enter your own category in a text field. [...]
Posted Tuesday, January 30th, 2007.
Because I work for an SEO company in Pittsburgh, I tend to do quite a lot of local searches in and around the Pittsburgh metro area. At work we’ve been receiving some phone calls from people who think we’re Google – the latest was an event planner wanting to check up on conference plans. I [...]
Posted Saturday, January 6th, 2007.
I’ve been analyzing some of the results in Google Maps and by using Google Local Business Center (GLBC) I’ve found that a business can rank: 1) first, infact better than that, it can have an authoritative listing without even having a website. Not all businesses have a website, but I have to question the priority [...]
Posted Sunday, December 17th, 2006.
Google OS blogged about a rumored project Google Phone. I was just reading some of Mike Blumenthal‘s research about Google local and a thought popped into my head. If the new device has GPS capability, then Google would know your location, so if you searched for “pizza”, perhaps it would use your immediate location for [...]
