Mordy Oberstein tweeted to me this morning about his observation that Mt Everest has been plagued with dozends of fake reviews. I think Google has a fake review problem when it comes to Earth’s most famous landmarks. Here’s one for Mt. Everest & despite some of these being hilarious, they are of course fake. Same..
Google has added a section to the guidelines that clarifies the policies for events on Google Maps. The guidelines state that events are subject to the following guidelines: Events should reflect the real world. That means they should be real, accurate, and occuring at the specified location. Event titles should not promotional language, pricing information,..
Google My Business just launched 2 new features in the GMB dashboard and just to keep us all on our toes, one only works in the new dashboard and the other only works on the GMB Classic dashboard ? Both these new features really only impact users that manage lots of locations. If you only manage..
There are a ton of algorithm updates that happen regularly but not too many that have a moderate-to-high impact on local businesses and those of us that do Local SEO. The algorithm update that happened on March 9th was one that had a clear impact on local businesses both organically and in the 3-pack. Even after..
As someone who works regularly with small businesses, I am frequently asked: “Should I advertise on Yelp”? In this case study I show the cost per lead for this business who advertised on Yelp and how it compared with the AdWords account we run for them.
Jan 8, 2018 Update: Google now clarifies that all reviews from competitors & employees are against guidelines. Before, it stated that posting negative content about a current/former employment experience wasn’t allowed and on January 5 they removed the word “negative”. Before, it stated that posting negative content about a competitor to manipulate their rankings wasn’t allowed..
This year was exciting for me because I decided to launch a training guide for Local SEO that I spend time updating every month. When I started the project I knew it would be time consuming but didn’t quite realize how much would need to be put into the guide to keep it current and..
I stumbled across something this morning while checking up on a business that has been filtered due to the Possum algorithm update. It was one of those exciting moments in the life of an SEO when I saw the business was no longer filtered. I’ve had my local rank tracker with Bright Local scanning their..
Earlier this year, when I was first writing my advanced local SEO training, I reached out to some users who work for local SEO agencies and asked them what they’d like more training on. The biggest topic I got as a result was related to tracking and reporting value to small business owners.
Creating fake reviews might seem like a great way to boost your business’s local profile, but the consequences far outweigh the benefits. After all, you’re not just violating Google’s guidelines – you’re breaking the law.
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