The Near Memo

Send us a textHow SMBs buy services:  Despite what we may think, neither word of mouth nor social are how small and very small businesses buy payment solutions. Search was where it was at. This survey likely can be extrapolated to any SAAS product or service. While it takes longer and is harder to gain search traffic, search and SEO ultimately pays off if you are trying to reach the SMB audience. DSA is kicking in and we are seeing its impact globally:  DSA and the related P2B regulations become effective at the end of this month. Both sets of regulations require more transparency and accountability for business to business services like GBP. We have seen a number of support form upgrades and processes that enhance the flow of Google support. In Europe businesses are additionally offered the benefit of mediation services. Whether support will actually improve or is this just transparency theater is yet to be determined.  AI generated artwork is NOT covered by copyright:  We are at the beginning ogg generative AI for creative uses AND at the beginning of the process of establishing copyright around the creations generated. The Copyright Office first granted a copyright to a comic books whose images were created by Midjourney and then later reversed itself with respect to the images. They said that since these were created by AI, they're not copyrightable and that you cannot copyright something if there isn't sufficient human involvement. Ultimately these questions will be resolved in the Supreme Court. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.near memo ep 125Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGoogle Ambassadors (ie Gig Workers) now staffing GBP support  poorly:  Google Business Profile support has added a new layer of first level support using what they call Google Ambassadors. These are “passionate brand advocates” working as gig workers. While it provides a comforting, warm body to the chat support experience, it is likely to just waste your time. So be prepared to take a winding path to your answer and expect to be passed along without a conclusive solution. New Google feature: Search Generative Experience while browsing:  This new generative AI search feature, adds automatic article summaries to a web page to quickly find the web page’s key points and jump directly to the relevant section to learn more. It works reasonably well on the desktop but is problematic on mobile devices. Google is attempting to insert themselves into your website and to direct users to other searches.  Are AI Generated review summaries the future of platform reviews?Newegg, Amazon and others have started to use AI to create summaries of the typical user review.  It will expedite purchases because people will get the information they need from the review summary without having to read the underlying reviews. It is an idea that possibly will make shopping more efficient and sets a trend that Google will surely follow. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.near memo ep 124Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGoogle VS Chat GPT Taste Test:  In blind testing, users appear to prefer ChatGPT search results over Google by almost 2:1. Those are the findings of the test's creator, ClickPop, which requires some caveats. Nonetheless, the outcome suggests the Google brand and familiar UI may be a bigger factor in Google's dominant search position than search qualityGoogle Ad Liaison provided bad pruning advice to CNET:  CNET was "busted" by Gizmodo this week for pruning a bunch of old content. The search liaison for Google came out and said: "Hey, you shouldn't do this. You shouldn't prune your content. The notion that Google doesn't like old content is just wrong". The takeaway from the comment is intended to be "don't prune content", which is a piece of very bad SEO advice. It sounds like CNET is, has a really good SEO team that clearly understands what they are doing. They noted: "Removing content from our site is not a decision we take lightly. Our teams analyze many data points to determine whether there are pages on CNET that are not currently serving a meaningful audience. This is an industry wide best practice for large sites like ours", whatever Google might say.Consumers indicate that reviews are important but do they read them? Our user research in YMYL local categories continues to show that reviews are incredibly important to reviewers; it is the single most mentioned criteria and probably influences even those searchers that don’t mention it.  Yet very few people actually seem to read the reviews and primarily look at the rating stars and secondarily at the quantity. This should be a clarion call for the FTC to ban any review incentives rather than require that they be labeled. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.near memo ep 123Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textNew Local ad format,  Updated GBP Guideline clarifies policies, Google SGE shows reference links:New Local Ad format is a local ad as local ads should beGoogle seems to have rolled out a new ad unit that relies on local assets like GBP photos for the the creatives. The ads include a map, review ratings and an image are very eye-catching and appear to be extremely easy to create and use. This is the ad that Google should have made available to local advertisers from day one.New GBP Guidelines clarify long “secret” policies:Google rolled out a number of new policy statements regarding the rules guiding suspensions and content take downs affecting Google Business Profiles (GBP). These guidelines, long the working rules that affected listings and listing content, now make explicit how a user accounts and abuses affect whether a business continues to have access to any given listing or whether that listing will be removed from Google.  While this increased clarity is welcome the devil is in the details.Google SGE finally includes reference links:Rather than just straight up plagiarism of the recent past, Google’s new AI based search test is now testing three different ways of including links in the “search generative experience (SGE). Some of these link tests make the links more obvious than others. However none of this pertains to local as there Google solely references their Local Knowledge Graph and GBP listings. In most of these cases, to get to the business website requires 2 clicks (go figure). While the SGE experience is improving it still has a ways to go to be better than the current search experience.The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.NearMedia Ep122Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGoogle continues to lose product search market share:  A recent quarterly survey from Jungle Scout indicates that Google and to a lesser extent Amazon are both losing product search market share. Google has lost almost a 7% share on a year over year basis despite massive investments in Product search related tech. Social media, particularly TikTok seems to be the big winner with an almost 6% gain. Does this reflect a growing consumer dissatisfaction with Google (and Amazon) or does it just reflect users default way that they are spending their time?Scammers hijack Airline phone numbers on Google:  Last week, amidst massive flight delays, scammers hijacked the service phone numbers for a number of airlines listed in the Google search results. The Google friendly press reacted as if this was a one off occurrence and Google provided their standard: “We do not tolerate this misleading activity, and are constantly monitoring and evolving our platforms to combat fraud …our teams have already begun reverting the inaccuracies, suspending the malicious accounts involved, and applying additional protections to prevent further abuse.”However given that this has occurred on an almost annual basis since 2008 and continues to this day, one has to ask if Google really cares or if this is just how they do business; collect data on the cheap and externalize the cost of their ML moderation to consumers and businesses? Yelp scolds businesses for soliciting reviews:  Recently a do-gooder Twitter user did some armchair activism and encouraged users worldwide to leave a review for her waitress at a local restaurant because the waitress would be “spiffed” $15 for each review.  Yelp in typical fashion, slapped an Unusual Activity Warning Alert on the business and proceeded to lecture business owners about the evil of soliciting reviews. The case is interesting because both reviewers AND Yelp seem to be out of touch with what makes sense in this somewhat nuanced situation.The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.near memo ep 121Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textApple Maps & Local Opportunities: Apple Maps is ACTUALLY used for local discovery and it appears to be sending more traffic than either Yelp or Bing. According to Apple insights at least 28% of clicks came from category searches. While  Apple Maps generates ~5% of the web visits and perhaps 10% of the phone calls of GBP, that is enough to put Apple Maps in second place as a source of local leads. Interestingly having access to both Apple and Google Maps driving direction clicks we can estimate Apple Maps market share at about 40% of all iPhone users Learnings from going undercover as a quality rater for Google: Cyrus Shepard signed up to be a Google Quality Rater and doing so allowed him to provide additional insights into what Google thinks is important. The details of  content, user intent, and web page quality understanding clearly inform the algo and provide a basis for Google’s results particularly in “your money and your life” categories. Is Google’s AI based SGE a dead end or the future of search?Initial excitement around Google’s AI response to bing chat raised hopes of a better user experience with search. The product, being slow and often not informative, has not really done that. And, at least according to this limited Twitter poll, users are using it less. Is it all just theater?The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.near memo ep 120Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textThe enshittification of Google Analytics:  Google analytics, with their forcing of GA4 on an audience that doesn’t need, understand or want the complexity, has created an opportunity for the market to deliver simple, easy to implement and understandable analytics. Will this fall to a third party or will it surface organically within the CMSs and operational platforms that are currently available?Twitter, where art thou replacement?The enshittification  of Twitter has moved along at a rapid pace and into that void we have seen numerous efforts to provide alternatives. With Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky (and a host of wannabes) vying for their attention it isn’t yet clear where anyone should focus and put their energies.  The FTC releases new review Guidelines & Rules for Reviews:This week the FTC went wild and crazy and published numerous and voluminous treatises providing Guidelines and proposed Rules for endorsements and reviews. Reviews have clearly been elevated in standing and the new guidance focuses on trying to maintain their honesty and integrity. But given that the real problems lie with Google and Amazon, and these effort largely excludes them, it is not clear what the impact will be. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.NearMemo Ep119Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textTiktok IS about Local but not the way you thinkWhile the Wall Street Journal thinksTikTok holds companies hostage and a small business in Philadelphia thinks it is unfair to get so many fake reviews, there is no denying that Tiktok has scale. While it hasn't really provided any real local discovery options, any given video can get so much traction that it can be felt at the most local of levels. Google Perspectives: innovation for the SERPs or bandaid to prevent social media flight?Google has rolled out a new mobile CTA at the top of many serps called Perspectives which provides a dedicated area at the top of the  search result for social media related commentary on the topic of your search. Depending on the query intent it might show first in the radio buttons or it might be last but it includes YouTube, Reddit, Quara and Twitter (amongst others) commentary on the topic. Many think that things have become less useful on Google; too many ads, too much spam, et cetera, and Google has to respond to it. The question is whether this is an adequate response.New Google GBP feature “By Owner” & new Whitespark tool reflect reality that GBP is rented not ownedGoogle is now highlighting “all” owner controlled GBP content in one tab; By owner in the mobile business profile. It includes the business description and their updates (aka Posts). It is not clear why a user would ever select or be curious about that tab. Whitespark has released a new dashboard that tracks the changes that users and Google regularly make to all of the other data in the business profile like phone number, address, categories, URLs etc. and reports these annoying changes back to the business owner. When viewed together, any rational business should be able to understand that they control very, very little of their own profile on Google and what they do control is unlikely to be seen. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.NearMemo Ep118Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textDoes the world need another mapping project and an open source one at that? Meta, Amazon web Services, Tom Tom & Microsoft think so and teamed up to create the Overture Maps Foundation, with Marc Prioleau at the helm.The Overture Maps Foundation is a new organization within the open source Linux Foundation. It aims to improve mapping services by focusing on open map data that meets evolving market needs. By collaborating and sharing data, the foundation seeks to avoid duplication of efforts and allow businesses, governments, and organizations to concentrate on developing unique and value-added mapping applications. The foundation acknowledges the importance of proprietary data but emphasizes the benefits of open data for innovation and efficiency. While not currently seen as a major threat, the foundation's position aligns with the idea that proprietary mapping data should be distinct enough to provide value and not easily replaceable by freely available alternatives.Introduction to Overture Maps Foundation 00:02The Overture Maps Foundation is a new organization started within the Linux Foundation, aimed at open map data. It focuses on meeting the evolving market needs and improving map data quality. The foundation caters to individuals and organizations building map services, whether they are commercial entities, government entities, or NGOs. Marc Prioleau's Background in Mapping 00:19Marc Prioleau, the executive director of the Overture Maps Foundation, has a long history in the mapping world. He has worked in the GPS and mapping space for over 20 years, starting with Trimble Navigation and later working for companies like Telcantar, DeCarta, and Mapbox. His experience lies in developing large volume mapping applications and working with companies to improve their mapping services. The Need for Overture Maps Foundation 02:41The need for the Overture Maps Foundation arose due to the increasing demands of map data. As mapping applications have evolved, the requirements for map data, including attributes, refresh rates, and spatial accuracy, have continuously risen. To keep up with these demands, the foundation focuses on providing open map data to enable companies to build richer and more differentiated mapping services. Changing World and Data 14:08The world is constantly changing, and data plays a crucial role in keeping up with these changes. Different industries and sectors require specific data to meet their unique needs. Companies, businesses, and governments utilize data to make informed decisions and build upon existing data layers. Collaboration and Open Source 14:32Collaboration and open-source initiatives have proven to be valuable in enhancing data quality, efficiency, and resource allocation. Open data, when combined with other data sources, becomes even more powerful. Removing barriers and sharing resources can lead to collective improvement and focus on more innovative aspects. Utilizing Ambient Data for Map Building 23:18AIS is exploring various sources of ambient data to enhance its map building capabilities. These sources include GPS traces, imagery, computer vision, and other signals. AI technology, such as computer vision, can extract valuable map data from imagery. Additionally, signals like movement data and other unique sources can contribute to accurate and up-to-date maps. Indoor location challenges 28:36Indoor location, particularly in multi-story buildings like shopping malls and airports has been challenging. It was difficult to determine the floor level and detect when someone entered a business on a different level. The speSubscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGoogle LSA reviews come, they go but LSA still sucks:  Last week we saw seismic activity in the disappearance of Google Local Service Ads (LSA) reviews and there was hope, however faint, that they were fixing their fake review problem. But like with so much around Google local efforts, that was not the case. Fake reviews in LSA are emblematic of Google’s lost opportunity with these ads. They offered up the promise of Google being able to track the whole consumer journey and being able to verify reviews as authentic. We discuss the many reasons contributing to why Google’s LSA is has failed to live up to its promise of vetted businesses and verified reviews and to a large extent has just become another spam vector. Localized stories and visualizations are a path to SEO success for National Local Brands:  Buzzsumo did a broad linking study to understand which news sources linked to which and how to best leverage that knowledge to increase the likelihood of content placement to generate backlinks. What stood out was the fact that localized stories and visualizations are the most likely to be syndicated in top-tier media. And this is a tactic that any national firm with a local presence can leverage to achieve branding, links AND local visibility.Are AI driven personal assistants the future of search?AI is dramatically changing the nature of search. Will Google’s SGE define that future or will it be something like Mustafa Suleyman’s Inflection?  Inflection is Mustafa Suleyman’s new company that he founded with Ried Hoffman after selling Deep Mind to Google and working for Google. He believes that Google’s vision is fundamentally flawed.What will replace search, if anything and how long will it take? The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.near memo ep 117Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/