Google is testing various headlines for the Local Service Ads. Two of them show the “Ads” label and one does not, while they all test different headlines for the ad listings. This was spotted by Len who posted this screenshot on Twitter: “See plumbers” versus “Here are plumbers” versus “50+ plumbers nearby” – I bet […]
INTERVIEW | Marco De Vil You may recognise him from billboards for Mr Price or Sportscene, but 22-year-old Marco De Villiers aka Marco De Vil wants to show that he’s more than just a pretty face and is using his music to do so. The 22-year-old rapper, songwriter and model is the perfect example of […]
This week, we learned that Google’s Panda update at one point in time evolved into what was called the Google Coati update. Google also had another weekend update last week. Google Search Console added a new shopping tab with more streamlined Merchant Center integration. Google said they now recommend dots over commas for review snippet […]
Another small study done by Joy Hawkins says that the recency of reviews does impact the rankings of those local business listings in Google Search and Google Maps. Like the previous studies, this was not really statistically significant but it is nice to see a case study looking at these in isolation. One of her […]
Come join us in our historic apple orchard for Terhune wine, light fare, relaxing music, and friend-filled afternoons every Saturday and Sunday this November from 12:00 – 5:00 PM at Terhune Orchards Vineyard and Winery. Grab a glass of one of our award-winning wines, sit back, relax, and enjoy live music from local artists each […]
To start things off, I quickly covered the monthly Google webmaster report. Google also had some big unconfirmed update on or around October 28th. Google confirmed a search bug with top stories and search features starting on October 18th through October 28th. I provided one example of one site that got slammed by the Google […]
A new study from Sterling Sky shows that putting keywords in the local reviews on business listings does not help improve the local listings ranking in Google Search. The study said, “it does not improve rankings.” In short, the study put reviews with the keyword phrases “fresh cut Christmas trees” and “Christmas trees” in the […]
There are some signs that Google web search results are displaying the local pack, the local search results box, less often and for fewer queries. The most shocking state is from Mozcast which says it use to show around 40% of queries but now it is showing for 24% of queries. Here is the Mozcast […]
There are numerous reports of Google doing some mass pruning and removals of reviews from the local maps results, from Google Business Profile listings. This is done every now and then, it is unclear if this is a bug or some new filter being applied to already approved reviews. Jason Brown posted a chart in […]
Google Maps and local panels have shown booking, appointment, reservation, and other ordering solutions from third parties for many years. And while we have a way to opt out, it is still causing a lot of confusion and frustration for these small businesses. We covered this issue years ago with restaurants not wanting orders to […]