Will Geolocation Become Ubiquitous?
Chris Messina at Citizen Agency has just blogged about how he believes that geolocation data will become ubiquitous for websites to use, and this sort of contextual information about users will form a new layer of information that will available to all internet applications.
I find myself a bit skeptical, just because geolocation data has been around for so long now, and I’ve heard people saying that it will revolutionize how information is presented to us for quite some time. This concept is nothing new, though if you look at it from the perspective that Messina has provided, it’s a fairly compelling-feeling twist as a sort of infrastructure given that could and should be incorporated in the planning and development of any given internet site — particularly social ones — at their very inception.
What isn’t plain is just how integral all the locative information could be, considering the issues of unknowable error rates involved in geolocation data (see the section on “The issue of error rates” in “Geolocation: Core To The Local Space And Key To Click-Fraud Detection“) and consumer interest group resistance to pinpointing of users’ locations based upon privacy concerns (just today there was an article on how groups are complaining to the FTC about the ease of geo-pinpointing of users of mobile devices). I wish he’d touched on those aspects in some way, although I do like the techno-evangelist spin he’s provided on location as a foundational aspect in site design.
Update: Susan Mernit, formerly of Yahoo!, also points out that security is a major concern for applications like dating sites, and that there’s consumer irritation involved with some contextual advertising.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 05/06/2008 | Permalink | 
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Filed under: Futurism, Local Search, Maps, Mobile Searchgeographic location, Geolocation, Local Search
Travel Searches, Local & More Searches Turning Case-Sensitive in Google SERPs
Some of us at Netconcepts have been noticing that keyword rankings in Google search engine results pages (”SERPs”) have been turning case-sensitive for some queries lately. Search Engine Roundtable highlighted that the case sensitivity issue had been reported for queries seen in the UK, but we’ve been seeing it for queries committed from the US as well.
For instance, search for something like “fossil watches” and compare with “Fossil Watches”, and you’ll see that a few of the listings in the SERPs trade ranking positions:
Popularity: 22% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/15/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Searchingcase sensitive, case sensitivity, Google, Keyword-Rankings, search engine results pages, SEO, SERPs
Google Maps Now Allows Custom Categories For Businesses
Search Engine Roundtable notes that the Google Local Business Center is allowing businesses to enter their own, custom categories. While this new functionality has been around for a few weeks now, it is an important one and addresses a major need that both Mike Blumenthal and I have highlighted previously — I recently spoke about this issue again at the SMX West session on Local Search & Blended Results. Previously, businesses could only select business categories from an unusually short list of categories. Exacerbating the issue, some businesses achieved other category associations outside of Google’s sharply limited taxonomy when their listings found in other yellow pages providers such as Superpages were absorbed into Google Maps, including the more comprehensive categories found in those other content sources.
Under the new functionality, businesses may type in custom business categories, and the interface also provides helpful potential term using the Google Suggestion Tool:
Free-form categories is a slightly unique way to address the need of businesses. Yellow pages companies have traditionally offered businesses the option of categorization under many thousands of unique categories — on the order of twelve thousand to fifteen thousand categories in some cases. However, YP companies have also carefully considered and turned down requests for additions of completely new categories in some cases, mainly due to how yellow pages are constructed — if there are too few businesses in a category it won’t make monetary sense to add it into a directory. And, if the category name is too esoteric, consumers won’t search for it anyway.
With Google’s local search operating more closely as a straight keyword search tool, businesses could associate categories with themselves that are as specific as they desire without affecting usability or cost.
In other, related news, Google has announced that YouTube videos are now integrated with Google Maps, allowing businesses to add video info to their listings.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/15/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS | Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, Online Directories, Searching, Yellow Pages
Google’s KML Becomes Industry Standard
In an example of how becoming top dog can empower a company to influence and set industry-wide protocols, Google Earth’s KML format has been declared an open standard for geographical data by the Open Geospatial Consortium (”OGC”).
It’s really great and progressive that such a large, publicly-traded company such as Google would release control of its considerable intellectual property rights and allow KML to be used by anyone.
Google’s LatLong Blog also crows a bit about how KML is “the HTML of geographic content”, and explains that KML is no longer owned by Google, but is now administrated by the OGC.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/14/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, technologyGoogle-Earth, KML, open standards
Consumers: Stop Dropping Yellow Pages Books At Our Doors!
I noticed this article from Boston today, “Bothersome business pages“, which outlines residents’ irritation over receiving print directories which go unused.
I’m seeing more and more articles on the subject — this article indicates that as consumers perceive that there’s low usage and little need for print yellow pages books, they’re also coming to believe that the books sent to them are an inconvenience and an unacceptable environmental waste. (I’ve also mentioned before how I find the print directories less worthwhile, even though I used to work for a major yellow pages company.)
Apparently the Cambridge city council and other cities are actually considering going so far as to enact laws requiring that residents must opt-in for receiving the books, or they might ban mass distribution entirely… (more…)
Popularity: 15% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/09/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Local Search, News, Online Directories, Yellow PagesInternet-Yellow-Pages, Online-Yellow-Pages, Yellow Pages, yellow pages books
Independent Contractors Excluded from Google Maps
My article on How To Get On Google Maps Without An Address pubbed today on Search Engine Land - it outlines one of the top most frustrating issues facing some small businessmen who need to have listings in directories without including their street addresses. Google Maps, by policy, does not display listings for those who do not have street addresses, so smaller providers who might actually provide the best quality service work are left out in the cold when users perform local searches. Independent contractors (like plumbers, electricians, building contractors, etc) are the most affected by this issue, but some other businesses are also impacted.
My perception is that this lack of what is something of a standard among traditional yellow pages directories is due to Google’s desire to provide best user-experience. In a map search display, does it make sense to display items which can’t be pinpointed to the map?
My opinion is that it does make sense to do so, (more…)
Popularity: 64% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 02/11/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Maps, Online Directories, Yellow Pagesdirectories, Google-Maps, independent contractors, Local Search, Yellow Pages
Biz Profile Article Awarded the SEMMY for Local Search
My article, “Anatomy & Optimization of a Local Business Profile” was just awarded a SEMMY in the Local Search category for 2008.
Many thanks to all of you who voted for it! (more…)
Popularity: 6% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 02/01/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Blog Optimization, General, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Yellow PagesBlog Awards, Search Engine Marketing Awards, SEMMYs
Zvents Launches Federated Local Search
Zvents announced today their launch of a new, blended search results page for local content. Now, when you do searches on their site, they’ll bring back results for various businesses, events, performances, movies, store sales and more in your local area. Here’s a screengrab of the newly-blended results page:
You can see little icons to the right side of the listings which indicate what type of listing each result represents.
Google’s move to Universal Search in the past year and their recent move to expand out the local one-box results from a few listings to ten would indicate that user-testing is showing blended results to be a very popular item among search engine users. Zvents move to provide blended results makes them a very strong contender as a provider for local search and content technology. As Greg Sterling mentions, Zvents is a provider for syndicated content for third parties like newspapers, and they’re clearly positioning themselves as a potential backend for other local content sites wanting to have functionality similar to Google’s.
From trying out Zvents’ new functionality,
Popularity: 34% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/28/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Design, Local Search, Searchingblended results, federated search, Local Search, Universal-Search, zvents
Google Sending More Traffic To Google Maps
The New York Times today reported on a recent Hitwise post by Heather Hopkins highlighting that Google was now sending about three times as many of their users over to Google Maps comparing a week ending January 6th with a year ago.
This is apparently due in part to Google recommending Google Maps instead of recommending other mapping providers in addition as it had been doing early last year. (more…)
Popularity: 49% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/14/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, Market DataGoogle-Maps, Local Search, Mapquest
The Kelsey Group Puts Print Yellow Pages On Notice
Over at Media Post, The Kelsey Group is quoted today saying that the erosion in usage of print yellow pages is likely to fall off at a higher rate this year — by 10% this year, compared with only 2% to 3% erosion in recent years.
They state that a combination of factors such as more users going to internet yellow pages and local search engines combined with a recession are propelling the rapid erosion. Concerningly, one can extrapolate that if print YP usage is dropping, advertiser dollars might also follow the herd.
As Greg Sterling points out, The Kelsey Group has historically been a very staunch defender of the print YP industry, so this article is a bit of a gut-punch to people in the legacy print business, even though anyone watching the trends over the last few years won’t find it all that surprising.
One thing the Media Post article doesn’t mention is how (more…)
Popularity: 41% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/11/2008 | Permalink | Email
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