I’m writing this because Google needs your help to weed out fake reviewers, and this is how I reported one. I just reported this user, Heather C-H, where I suspect that it’s a fake profile for a number of reasons… No “About” information No personal information No full name No profile photo No images, albums [...]
In Google Analytics, a small improvement was made a couple of months ago to the interface for comparing your stats to a previous period in time, and I think it was long overdue. As a manager for Ross Dress for Less in the early 1990′s I lived and died by my “comps” , which were [...]
I have a high school friend whom I’ve helped with his website intermittently over the years, and I claimed his Google Local page for him quite a few years ago. Last summer, I created a Google+ page for him also, and I never thought much about it after that. A few weeks ago, I edited [...]
Okay, I’m calling BS here, Google – What’s going on?!? Can someone explain to me how a post I wrote three days ago is still not found by searching it’s exact title? Any time I’ve ever looked, my posts are indexed, often within just minutes, and NEVER do I recall a post I’ve made not [...]
Sometimes, paid links may be totally alright with Google, and in fact in many cases are EXACTLY WHAT THEY’RE LOOKING FOR. Let me explain… If I search Google for “CNN author on Google plus” then I get over 22 million results, with John D Sutter showing as #1 John Works for CNN, and he even [...]
I work with a company that produced a documentary about Keiko the whale, who was the star of the 1993 sensation, Free Willy. (Wow, has it really been 19 years?) Over a week ago, we found out that their website got hacked, and although it was NOT reported in Webmaster Tools, the search results did [...]
There’s a bug in the Google Places app on my Android phone that is allowing me to edit the last review for any local business. Instead of saying “Leave a Review” the only option for me is to “Edit Your Review”. I discovered it over the weekend while I was trying to leave a review [...]
This Wednesday, May 30th in the ever changing world of local search, Google officially announced the “end” of “Google Places” and they are merging it with Google Plus (Google+). This has been written up quite extensively already, but I thought I’d chime in on where I think “Google Plusaces” is going next… As you can see, [...]
This is just quick update to show that my Google Places impressions over the past 30 days are less than half of what they were the previous month. This was the result of following the new Google guidelines that require local service businesses without a storefront to check a box that says “This business serves [...]
I’ve been advising others about their search presence since 2002, and this is the first time I recall ever telling someone to do something that could ultimately hurt them. Please consider this a “retraction” to my prior advice, and read it carefully. For years I’ve believed that local service businesses should be visible on Google [...]
In a stunning move, even as the dust settles from their deindexing of some blog networks last week, Google is announcing a brand new ranking algorithm designed to level the playing field for domains in competitive industries. Each year, Google changes its search algorithm 400 to 600 times. While most of these changes are minor, every few [...]
Last night I did a search on Google because my wife had her car window smashed by some Portlandia hooligans while she was watching the Central Catholic High School play. The first result for “emergency auto glass repair” was Glass Doctor, and it was a combined local listing, so I picked up the phone and [...]
