ReachLocal Becomes Authorized Google Adwords Reseller
ReachLocal announced today that they’ve formed a strategic alliance with Google to become an authorized Adwords reseller. Kevin Heisler at SEW reports that this will give them a leg up on competitors in local search who won’t benefit from the same status in the Google ecosystem.
ReachLocal also sells local ads into Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, AOL, and my old company, Superpages.com.
I was privileged to be given a tour of the ReachLocal offices here in Dallas back in September, (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/08/2008
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Monetization of Search, News, Yellow Pages Adwords, Google, Google Adwords, Local Search, online-advertising, reachlocal
GravityStream Does Local SEO: Now Fixes Store Locator Pages
I’m pleased to announce that GravityStream can now optimize store locator pages for those retailer sites which provide search utilities for their local outlets.
As you may recall, I’ve written before about how dealer locators are terribly optimized and how store locator pages can be optimized. A great many store locator sections of major corporate sites are not allowing search engine spiders to properly crawl through and index all the locations where they may have brick-and-mortar outlets.
Most large companies seem fairly unaware that their store locators are effectively blocking search engine spiders and are making it impossible for endusers to find their locations through simple keyword searches. I’ve also listed out a number of top store locator providers which produce locational services like this for many Internet Retailer 500 companies.
Read on for details on our results…
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/08/2008
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Filed under: Content Optimization, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Site Structure, Tools Automatic-SEO, dealer-locators, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, store-locators
Google Maps to Embed in New Magellan GPS
Barely one day in advance of the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show opening in Las Vegas this week, Magellan issued a press release about their next generation of GPS navigation devices, highlighting how they will come integrated with Google Maps to provide local search capabilities.
John Hanke, Director of Google Maps & Earth is quoted, saying, “We’re pleased to be partnering with Magellan to provide users with detailed, relevant local information while on the road. Magellan devices are powerful, interactive tools for navigation and discovery that serve as a cutting-edge platform for Google’s robust local search capabilities.” (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/07/2008
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, technology CES, Consumer Electronics Show, Google-Maps, GPS, Magellan
New Terrain Feature on Google Maps
The Google Operating System blog alerted us to how Google Maps quietly added a new “Terrain” button and removed the “Hybrid” button which combined Satellite and Map content. The official Google Lat Long blog reports that the “hybrid” feature can be accessed by clicking the Satellite button and the clicking on/off the “Show labels” box that appears in a dynamic drop-down.
The Terrain content can look pretty dynamic for mountain areas and other places with dramatic elevation contrasts like this area for the Grand Canyon:
I’m not sure just how valuable this is for the majority of users — (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 11/27/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps Google-Maps, Maps, online-maps, Orienteering, Terrain
Superpages.com Adds More User-Generated Content to the Local Mix
About a week ago, Idearc announced that Superpages.com had introduced more user-content features.
Previously, the primary component of user content on the site was limited to user ratings and reviews associated with business listings.
Some of the new features this recent upgrade added include allowing all users to enhance basic biz profile information, uploading pictures of organizations, wiki-like biz listing “blog” features which could allow simplistic blogging by businesses and/or could be used as a consumer comment or Q/A zone for each business since any user could submit info to them.
Of all the top online yellow pages and local search sites, I believe that Superpages may now have the distinction of having the greatest (more…)
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 11/14/2007
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Filed under: Design, Local Search, Market Data, News, Online Directories, Social Media Optimization, Yellow Pages idearc, Internet-Yellow-Pages, iyp, Local Search, superpages, Yellow Pages
Google Maps Now Sports Special Logo Treatment
I noticed that Google Maps started using a special logo treatment this morning:
The logo is apparently promoting Geography Awareness Week 2007.
Google has done various logos promoting holidays and other special events on the main Google logo for quite a number of years, but I believe this is one of the first ever done on one of their vertical search properties. Unfortunately, the logo doesn’t link to the special event page, and it looks a lot like a roasted turkey — the smallness of it makes it hard to read visually, so I’m betting a lot of Google Maps users won’t have a clue as to what this is signifying.
Update: the Google Lat Long blog mentions their support of Geography Awareness Week.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 11/13/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, Marketing Google, Google-Maps, Logos
Build Your Own Local Search Engine
Quite a few bloggers out there have clued-in to how using Eurekster’s Swickis on their blogs can be a cool feature enhancement, providing custom thematic search engines for their users. If you have a blog that focuses on particular subject matter, inclusion of useful links and other features like these custom search engines can help to build loyalty and return visits. But, for webmasters who build local guides for small communities, Swickis are also an ideal way to rapidly provide robust, location-specific search functionality.
Over time, I’ve looked at a lot of small community guides, and many of the people who create them are masters of finding free widgets to provide functionality for things like weather forecasts, news headlines, and local events. But, many of these sites are missing even simple search functionality to help users find the local info on their site as well as elsewhere on the internet. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 10/31/2007
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Filed under: Blog Optimization, Dynamic Sites, Local Search, Searching, Tools Custom-Search-Engines, Eurekster, search-engines, Search-Widgets, Swickis
Infospace to Merge with Marchex?
At least, that’s what this Forbes article theorizes as one possible explanation, quoting a Wall Street analyst:
“Scott Sutherland, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, said the most likely scenario is that the company will take InfoSpace private to save money or merge with the search and media company, Marchex, whose executives are former executives at InfoSpace.”
Just yesterday, I expressed a bit of confusion about why InfoSpace made deals to sell off their mobile services to Motricity, and sell off directory services to Idearc’s Superpages… (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 10/16/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, News InfoSpace, Local Search, Marchex, Mergers, metasearch-engines, Mobile Search
Is InfoSpace Cashing Out?
First it was announced that InfoSpace was selling Switchboard and other directory properties of theirs to Idearc for $225 million. Today InfoSpace announces that they’re selling off their mobile services business for $135 million.
InfoSpace’s release says that they’re selling off the mobile services “…to focus on online search”. They’re apparently going to also give a chunk of this change back to their shareholders in a dividend.
This just makes me wonder, is Infospace cashing out?
Local search has been one of Infospace’s strengths over time — they even changed their core website a few years ago to focus on local search & yellow pages more — prior to that they’d been a more general search engine (they still own general meta search engines like Dogpile.com).
Also, this mobile service sale seems odd since the rest of the internet marketing industry is starting to hyper-focus on mobile search and services.
Even though “yellow pages” directories are not exactly the same thing as local search, you’d expect for InfoSpace to hold onto the assets (and hold onto the mobile services), or to sell the assets to use the money to capitalize on the search areas where they want to focus. So, why are they doing this?
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 10/15/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, Market Data, News InfoSpace, Local Search, Mobile Search
Voice Search the Next Big Thing in Mobile
Gregg Stewart has a great article today at Search Engine Watch on how Voice Search may be the “next big thing” that’s actually already arrived to large degree.
He posts an interesting graph from the Kelsey Group that estimates some fantastic growth figures for ad-sponsored directory assistance usage over the next few years.
Although I don’t really question any of the points Gregg made (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 10/12/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, Mobile Search, Paid Search 411, directory-assistance, voice-search
