Thanks to the local search community, we’ve helped over 2,000,000 American businesses over the last three-and-a-half years improve their Local Search presence.

I’m not necessarily saying anyone should do this right now, as the implications of syncing / switching over completely to a Google +Local page are still unclear.

Take a step back and not fall victim to “shiny object syndrome,” as SEO’s (including your humble author) so often do. Siri represents somewhere around 4.875% of all Local searches. (And just 1.196% of ALL searches.)

In what’s later been termed “self-preferencing,” I suggested in 2012 that those of us practicing organic optimization should probably bone up on Adwords as a defensible future skillset.

Even based on information revealed directly by the search engines, the overall number cited for Local Intent searches should be 30%.

Not that it is any surprise to anyone, but Google just announced the end of Place Pages. I offer some questions and document possible answers.

Naturally, after a big interface update like the Places-Plus “merge” that just happened, the first question on everyone’s minds–from business owners to marketers–is “OK, so how do I rank in this thing?”

It sure looks like we’re getting much closer to the day where Places and Plus become tightly integrated, both in terms of backend infrastructure AND what the searcher sees in his Universal Search-Plus-Your-World results.

Yelp and David Mihm, Inc. both want the same thing–more competition in Local Search. But I was disappointed to see the specific arguments against Google Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman used in his testimony.

Google has just released city-specific business directories that are clearly going to compete with Yelp, Citysearch, and all the other IYPs in terms of highlighting popular local businesses.

“…is this place still here?” The company’s underlying mindset is to crowdsource without cost as much as it possibly can.

For someone in Local Search, it’s been thrilling to see this kind of major traditional advertising campaign, and I’ve felt that Google’s placements have been impossible to miss. They did their homework on where to show the ads, and used headlines that resonate with Portlanders in both tone and content.

Clearly that’s hyperbole that’s associated with seemingly every technology merger and/or hot startup these days. But if the reported deal goes through, it would represent a colossal shake-up in our little world of Local Search.

Google decided to roll out its new user interface (first reported by Mike Blumenthal on July 5th) for local search results yesterday. It is a tectonic shift, both algorithmically and visually, that has left a number of publishers, and certainly spammy lead generators, catatonic today. I actually don’t think this new UI is any worse for IYPs than the 7-pack was.

I find it fascinating that Google would embark on what seems to be a fairly significant sales process for Local before getting its customer service ducks in order. 

With so many of Google’s organic guidelines, it seems like intent is key to determining what is and is not spam. Yet in Local, the line is a little blurrier. It seems to me that Google could solve this problem quite easily, however, by removing the ranking weight given to geographic keywords in the business title.

how many clicks are going to go to that #1 organic listing? I know mine didn’t the first time I saw this result. Google knows users don’t want to sort through Google’s search results only to be directed five OTHER companies’ OWN Local search results.

Initially my thought was that any deal that made this ecosystem a little simpler would be a good thing from the perspective of the SMB. But, many of my clients already want to put all of their eggs in the Google basket, and that is just not a healthy business model.  How much further would a Gelp (Yoogle?) partnership skew that kind of thinking?