This Week Online 27th July 2014

What a week online!

In case you missed the excitement, I’ve trawled the web to share with you the best bits that caught my eye over the last week.

Local Search

Google has once again put the cat amongst the pigeons with a major update to the local search rankings.

Nicked named “Pigeon” by Search Engine Land, the new algorithm rolled out to US English users (Google.com) at the back end of the week.

When I heard the name, the first thing that popped into my head was Dastardly and Muttley – Stop the Pigeon.  One day I’ll grow up…

Image credit: zobi1

The new local search algorithm affects both Google Maps and web search and further ties in “local” with standard search ranking signals . Our friends across the big pond are seeing huge movements in results – both good and bad. There’s plenty of discussion, first impressions and before and after screenshots over on the Local Search Forum.

Google has not indicated when (or even if) the new algorithm will be introduced for other regions including here in the UK.  What happens over on .com often finds its way over here too – take this as prior warning to make sure you have a business website and are building your online footprint!

Google My Business

Over on Google Plus, The Great British Hangout talked about the joys of Google My Business and local search in this live Hangout, “How to Google your Business”. I really liked Nick Rink’s explanation of how Google gets its information and the importance of keeping your data clean – it’s one of the most common issues I come across when working with small businesses.

Needless to say, I found myself nodding away throughout the Hangout. It’s well worth a watch so I’ve embedded it here.

If you are using Google Plus (and you should be!) do pop over to the hangout event and have a browse through the questions and answers in the comments too.

Google My Business PIN Verification Problems

Google My Business  may have made it easier for businesses to claim their local listing, but some things don’t change! There’s been an increase in PIN verification issues leaving many confused.

Local Landing Pages

Another Hangout, this time from ISOOSI with a throwback Thursday blog post. Titled “Making Your Thin Content Phat!” the panel discuss the effects of low quality content on search rankings.

While not specifically a local search discussion, there is a plethora of great tips for making your website local landing pages unique and useful for searchers. Ecommerce descriptions, Panda manual penalties and excessive pagination are also discussed in this episode.

Introducing Yelp Trends

Announced in this blog post, Yelp introduce Yelp Trends. Access trending data in 98 cities throughout 20 countries to explore what Yelp users love (or don’t!)

A Reason To Actually Use Google Plus?

Authorship photos for your articles may have disappeared from search results, but profile and page images can still show for Google Plus posts when people search while logged into Google. Not to mention, logged in searches can dramatically affect search results based on your connections.

Explore With Google Maps

The Google Maps mobile app now has a brand new button – Explore. Now you can see places and activities on the map that adapts to your location and time of day. Yet another reason to ensure YOUR business is on the Map…

Need More Reviews?

Asking and receiving online reviews about your business can prove difficult. This postcard method may work for you too.

Save Feature on Facebook

Facebook introduces save for places, links and music/tv/films. Now you can get reminders of things you want to go back and take a look at directly in your newsfeed. I’m not seeing a save button yet, but there is the option to save in the drop-down menu.

Of course, people have to actually see our page updates to save them…

Facebook Still The King Of Social Website Traffic

Despite ever decreasing reach for Pages over on Facebook, the platform still dominates when it comes to driving traffic according to the latest Shareaholic stats.

That’s not what I see here on MLBO, where Pinterest is the ruler of the roost (still shocking as I don’t do graphics well!) Facebook comes a lowly third behind Twitter and closely followed by Google Plus and Youtube.

What is your best social traffic source?

Tips To Reduce Delivery Of Fraudulent Ecommerce Orders

With many small businesses branching into ecommerce to sell their products online, they run the risk of unknowingly shipping fraudulent orders. Kontrolit gives you 19 tips to reduce your chances of shipping an order placed with a stolen card using a risk matrix approach.

The Right To Be Forgotten

In the same week that Bing introduced their Right To Be Forgotten request form, Google say they received 91,000 takedown requests across Europe, involving nearly 330,000 URLs.

The EU Regulators are still not happy bunnies though. They are expressing concern that webmasters are informed when pages are removed from search and that the same pages can still be found by using Google.com.

Meanwhile, Google wants your opinion on the principles they should apply when considering requests for removal.

Over to you…

Your thoughts and opinions on any of the stories highlighted in this post are always welcome in the comments.

Keep up with what I am reading over on Twitter, Google Plus or Facebook.  Don’t forget to say hi too!