update: i was a bit behind on my reader and noticed Matt posted about this on SEL as well

I did some searches for company names inside Google Maps and found out that google was saving my previous searches and storing the markers in seperate colors inside a new part of the interface (something they call the rv_panel / revision panel?) as the screenshots below will show.

Apart from this I also noticed a ‘zoom level specifier’ in text-view mode but was unable to reproduce it in order to make a screenshot. The ‘zoom level specifier’ was shown alongside the small map in textview and  had numeric values of the zoomlevel with labels ’street’, ‘place’ , etc to identify its zoom level depth. Let me know if some of you people have seen this experiment and please send me a screenshot

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Recent interface changes to Google Maps

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twitter.com/GoogleMaps
twitter.com/GoogleEarth
twitter.com/EarthOutreach
twitter.com/SketchUp
twitter.com/3DWH
twitter.com/Modelyourtown
twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap

The twitter accounts are pretty self explanatory.

BTW: remember you can follow me on twitter too! @martijnbeijk is where you will find my tweets.

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Google’s Geo related Twitter accounts

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Supported browsers currently are:

• Google Chrome 2.0+ (using Gears),
• Mozilla FireFox 3.5+
• any browser with the latest version of Gears installed.

A step forward to bringing locally relevant results to your desktop!

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

MyLocation coming to browser!

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The first video is about Local Search Inclusion:

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Local Search Inclusion with David Mihm

The second video is about SEO for Local Search

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – SEO for Local Search

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Local Search Inclusion and SEO for Local Search video’s

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The general idea of the Local Search Ranking Factors is to give business owners a chance in understanding the things that matter to Local SEO. Even focusing on a few of the elements included in this huge research can have big effects for your online marketing strategy.
David’s quote:

It is my hope that this study will help small business owners confused by Local Search, or those strapped for time, to prioritize their marketing efforts.

The total research included almost 50 questions asked to 27 experts in the local search optimization field (I was lucky to participate, thx David!)

I recommend all my readers to go check it out, and join the conversation on David’s blog.

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Local Search Ranking Factors 2009 are out!

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• the bicycle (trike) with the camera almost half a meter lower than the normal ’street car setup’.
• a telephone hotline to receive image removal requests (to those who have no way to do so via the Internet. )
• enabling residents to mask their ‘nameplate’
• enabling residents to mask their licence plates (when this has not already done so automatically)

Google Japan has put up a cool video as well You can find it after the break!

(via: Asiajin.com )

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Google Street View by bike?

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A statement from the privacy commission says:

“Our privacy laws tell us that also foreign establishments that process personal information in an automated way need to declare this with the privacy commission. “

By filing they also declare that the imagery can solely be used for the purpose of Google Street View. Brussel will be the first city in Belgium to get Street View. But other cities will follow shortly after. It will take a couple of months however before Street View will be available in Belgium.

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Google files declaration with Brussels for Privacy Commission

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I’ll put up a part here in this post to give you guys a preview of what I am talking about. This part is about adding URL parameters to your Local Business Center URL’s. In the full article you will also learn how to track the vertical ‘maps.google.com’ and the 3-click-path traffic from the Universal Search results.

Feel free to leave a comment here or on Mike B’s blog!

Track URLs in Local Business Center

First of all, we want to track the URLs in the Local Business Center. The Local Business Center provides very basic information. Impressions and Views. Google is very vague in their answers in the help groups/forum on what an impression or a view actually mean. Does it account universal search traffic as well? or just directly Google Maps related views/clicks? And is this data accurate? We will decide to monitor this not from the Local Business Center but rather with Google Analytics.

Imagine your business has 2 store locations. Each in a different city/state. Your website has one URL www.example.com.

We will give each location a URL with GA parameters. By doing this, we will create a ‘virtual’ campaign in GA for our local listing.

In order to do this we will use the Google Analytics URL builder tool, which you can find here: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578

You only need to fill in your specific location URL. the campaign source (in this case; google), the campaign medium (maps) and give it a campaign name, for example local_location_1.

Now copy the full URL and enter it in the Local Business Center for that specific listing. Everything should work okay (although the URL might be a bit long for the LBC to display it properly). Note that Google Maps will only display the part of the URL before the parameters!

Track Local campaign using 301 Redirects

You can do the same using a 301 redirect. (this is my preferred method, but you will have to know how 301 redirects work. ) Using 301 redirects you will be able to have a clean URL in your local business center.

In this case the Google Local Business Center contains the following URL :

www.example.com/locationpage

Google Maps will display :

www.example.com

clicking on the link in Google Maps will actually bring you to :

www.example.com/location/city/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=local&utm_campaign=local_location_1

That’s it to track your Local Business using a virtual Campaign!

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Tracking Local Search traffic using Analytics

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Try it in Barcelona, close where I used to live, you will see the bullfighting arena ‘Monumental’ and in the same picture also another Street View car.
Try it out yourself!

(via Google Maps Mania)

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Put Street View on Full Screen

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Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

New Help Resource for Local Business Center

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