What Does Google’s Decision to Postpone Cookie-Cutting Mean for Multi-Location Brands?
Multi-location brand marketers got a big break last month, when Google announced its decision to postpone deprecating third-party cookies until at least 2024. The temporary respite gives marketers additional time to consider the changing landscape, especially when it comes to targeting customers online.
Location-Based Marketing Association: Google Displays Nearby Cars for Sale in Search
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association discusses DoorDash launching a gas rewards program to offset high prices, SES-Imagotag and UNICEF using electronic shelf labels to drive donations for Ukraine, GroundTruth and Flowcode partnering on QR codes in TV, and Google displaying nearby cars for sale in search.
Does a Bipartisan Bill Threaten the Autonomy of Local Platforms?
The push to regulate big tech is not new. In fact, a bill similar to the American Innovation and Choice Online Act was introduced by the House of Representatives last year, only to be relegated to the legislative back burner. So far, no meaningful legislation has made its way into law, but each new effort in that direction reawakens the possibility that companies like Google will eventually need to modify their practices to remove bias towards themselves.
Location-Based Marketing Association: Google’s Location Tracking Lawsuit
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association discusses Google getting sued over deceptive location tracking, Apple going head to head with Square by making iPhone payment terminals, SavageXFenty rolling out AR-powered FIT:MATCH tech in-store, and Placewise partnering with Bambuser to bring physical malls to customers via livestream.
How Do the “Other” Search Engines Handle Local Search?
I wanted to look in particular at search engines other than Google and their treatment of local search. I was intrigued by the recent announcements that Bing was making forays into product inventory as a component of local search as well as the launch of Bing Travel, a Google Travel competitor but with a very different approach to destination-based search and discovery. Similarly, recent news about the exponential growth of Brave and DuckDuckGo in our era of privacy impelled me to find out more about their handling of local results.
5 Ways Data Privacy Will Evolve in 2022
But the glut of new solutions does not mean that martech, much less the private sector as a whole, has figured out how to prepare for the future of data privacy. Here are five privacy predictions to keep an eye on in 2022. It would be in your best interest to determine how you and your company are affected.
The Influence of Local Guides on Google Reviews: Part 2
Figuring out what type of Local Guides are leaving reviews, and what kind of reviews they are leaving, matters for a few reasons. First, Local Guides are responsible for writing more reviews of local businesses than any other group on the internet. Second, Local Guides write reviews under circumstances that make them different from ordinary consumers: They are self-selected volunteers who get rewarded, albeit in a non-monetary fashion, for their contributions. Fairly or not, they are often thought of as biased and their contributions as less valuable, merely “written for points.” Third, the true characteristics of Local Guides are not well known, because they have not yet been subject to this type of study.
What I Learned from 50 Examples of the New Local SERP
After conducting more than 50 “local intent” searches, I’ve found that not all of them return the new “mega map,” nor is the new layout as consistent as it at first appeared it would be. The range of searches I tried includes generic keyword searches for brick-and-mortar stores, such as the example above, as well as searches for local service providers, chain stores, products, and more. I tried covering a broad base of searches covering a range of categories. I made sure all of my searches would be interpreted as local by appending “san francisco” to each query.
2021 Ranking Factors Report Underscores Importance of Google Profiles and Reviews
Three of the most notable trends — the ever-increasing importance of native Google My Business (now Google Business Profile) factors and, in particular, of reviews, as well as the diminished impact of citation building — are reinforced this year, with Google profile optimization accounting for 36% of local ranking, up from 33% last year, and reviews inching up from 16% to 17%, while citations continue at 7%, down significantly in importance compared to their prominent role in earlier years.
LBMA: Google Enters OEM Vehicle Navigation Space
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Google getting into the OEM vehicle navigation space, Giant Food piloting mobile deals on perishable foods, Lowe’s launching a “room scanning tool” using LIDAR in their app, and Amazon’s Alexa coming to hospitals and assisted living homes.
What’s Behind Google’s Fake Review Problem?
In an analysis of more than 4 million store reviews on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and TripAdvisor, Uberall and The Transparency Company found that Google has the highest average percentage of inauthentic reviews across business categories. More than one in 10 reviews on Google’s platform was identified as fraudulent or fake in Uberall’s analysis. The category with the highest percentage of fake reviews was locksmiths, while pharmacies came in as the category with the lowest percentage of fake reviews.
Google Local Search Trends IV: Federation
The initial launch of the GMB API in late 2015 allowed partners to maintain listings in near-real-time and at a much greater scale than was possible before. Now we’re in the midst of another sea change. Since the beginning of 2021, the API has been undergoing a complete overhaul from the ground up, a change that, once completed, will leave us with a totally different architecture that is more flexible and capable of much quicker iteration. This means, in all likelihood, that Google My Business as it is used by partners and the businesses who work with them will be able to move faster to fix issues and release new features.
Google Local Search Trends III: Socialization
In this third of four installments in my series on recent and ongoing trends in local search, I want to focus on signs that Google’s local platform — comprising Google My Business, Google Maps, and the local component of Google Search — has become, under our noses, a massive social network. Google has achieved this status not through traditional methods of connecting users to each other, but by allowing and encouraging users to share their experiences, questions, and opinions about local businesses in a variety of forms and at a massive scale.
Broadening Local: Expert Roundup
A trio of local search experts expound on the latest in the industry. Claire Carlile proposes Google My Business as a CMS and covers how businesses should approach the channel; Miriam Ellis explores the increasingly blurred lines between different categories of sites and businesses; and Damian Rollison delineates the major trends shaping the trajectory of local search, especially on Google.
Google Elevates Mapping and Visual Search
Google’s annual Search On event was held this week, including several updates to core search and orbiting products like Maps. Given the prominence and centrality of mapping to local commerce, we’ll start there.