Local search is a hot topic at the moment and now the focus is moving beyond just getting a local listing for your business. With major search engines like Google and Yahoo! displaying local listings in the main search results, the challenge for businesses is to get their local listing ranking above competitors. Below I look at some of the factors that can help your business improve its local ranking.
Google Gives JetBlue In-Flight Tracking
Google Maps this. Google Maps that. The service has been in the news again and again over the past few weeks, and it would be enough to make you sick – except that most of what’s happening is pretty cool. The latest development – a partnership between Google Maps and JetBlue Airways – meets the same standard.
Google Bombing Will Continue?
Marissa Mayer, Google’s sharp-talking Director of Consumer Web Products posts an article called “Googlebombing ‘failure’” in the Official Google Blog
Google Sites Video Streams Rush To Viewers
Driven by YouTube, sites run by Google led the comScore Video Metrix rankings for March 2007.
Google May Make Deal With South Korean Telecom
Google’s had some success in South Korea, yet the search engine giant has also had to make a number of adjustments and compromises. Now its tenacity may be paying off; reports indicate that South Korea’s biggest mobile phone operator may employ Google’s search-based advertising throughout its network.
Google Maps Takes On Public Transit Info
If you ride some form of public transportation – be it subways, trains, or buses – you may know about Google Transit, which helps users “[c]reate your own transit trip, complete with itineraries and maps.” That service worked just fine (within a few areas), but the search engine company now plans to incorporate much more information into Google Maps and Google Earth.
Google Maps To Add AdSense
Let’s see . . . Google Maps tells me to take a left, and then hang a right at an ad reading, “Click Here Now to Save $$$.” Wait, that can’t be right . . . And it won’t be, but Google has revealed that it will incorporate AdSense into its mapping services.
Google, BBC Make Mash-Ups
The word “mash-up” has certain connotations; the product may not be too polished, or it could be downright amateurish. The British Broadcasting Corporation is not an amateur, however; the BBC is, in fact, the world’s biggest broadcasting corporation. And the BBC’s into mash-ups.
JFK Terrorists Used Google Earth To Plan Plot
The good news is that the would-be terrorists targeting JFK airport weren’t all that bright. The bad news is that they’re smart enough to get their mapping information from Google Earth.
Google’s Search Gurus Spill Algorithm Beans
Ok, so the New York Times doesn’t exactly get Google’s top algorithm execs to tell us how the search engine calculates search results, but they do get fresh insight as to how Google decides to update it’s technology.
The article includes interviews with Amit Singhal, Matt Cutts and Udi Manber.
Insights include details of Google’s internal system for evaluating search queries, called Debug.