The Near Memo

Send us a textIn this 44 minute interview, David, Mike and Greg interrogate Barry Schwartz about algorithm updates, the SERP and the future of Google in an era of AI-generated content. Here are the topics in roughly the order they appear:Google UI changes and Universal SearchWhy Google makes SERP design changesMajor algorithm updates in 2021 and 2022Helpful content update, spam and product review updates  Is Google really trying to make search better? How the SERP has become more competitiveFuture viability of content written to rank The problem with recipe blogs Keyword stuffing and gaming the algorithmYMYL content and ranking Google quality raters and E-E-A-TAI and the Local Review Update AI and image moderation ChatGPT and its impact on GoogleIs Google getting worse – or is it the web? Why search is better today Google negative PR and regulatory pressure Staying ahead of spam How will Google handle AI-driven content?Near Memo Episode 94Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textHow different age groups think about reviews:  In a recent, large scale survey of attitudes and behaviors around reviews, Miriam Ellis uncovered some interesting facts about the different behaviors in different age groups Evolution of Apple’s  Business Register - Why isn’t Apple targeting the Enterprise:  A great listing management interface particularly compared to Google’s new (but flawed) experience. Apple hasn’t gone after enterprise brands and suggests that the register be limited to 20 locations. Apple Maps is fully indexed in the Google search results. Apple’s could provide a viable alternative to Google and Yelp but the lack of investment and marketing seems to be holding them back. Google’s Visual Elements Gallery demonstrates just how complicated search has become:  Google’s newly announced Visual Elements Gallery, while an attempt to help developers understand the many elements in search, demonstrates just how complicated search has become. Does this complexity serve the search or confuse them?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 93Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textHow ChatGPT’s  breakthrough ability to create content will significantly impact local:  ChatGPT seems to provide a quantum leap in quality and speed AI generated content. How will this impact not just content, writers and thinkers in local but how it might actually, some day, provide a better local search experience.A deep dive look at factors in Google Local’s new AI based review filter:   After examining almost 300 cases of Google erroneously taking down local reviews, we can start to see some of the factors of their new AI first approach to moderation. We explore which business categories and profiles are most impacted. And we discuss the confusion caused by Google’s “false positives”.Google nuke a joke location that promotes a lame basketball tame:  The King’s, in creating the Beam, have created a common theme for its fans. Its presence on Google inspired a level of ironic worship that seemed to be fun for all. Google, however, didn’t see it that way, and despite all Google’s many issues, they found time to throw water on the fire. 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 92Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a text74.3% of link builders pay for links and 89.1% of link builders say nofollow links have an impact on rankings. David reviewed a new survey of ~800 link builders by Authority Hacker.  Regardless of what Google proclaims, buying links is a tried and tested way to gain site benefits in less than 6 months and it's here to stay. Alexa pullback by Amazon points to difficulties with Voice. It is estimated that the Alexa unit had a negative $10 billion impact on Amazon this year with no significant contribution to increasing sales. As a result many of Amazon’s layoffs occurred in this department. This calls into question Amazon’s strategy of attempting to create a new platform and highlights the problems that are yet to be solved with voice computer interactions. Content Moderation will be at forefront of Sec 230 Fight in 2023With new laws in Fl. & Texas demanding that platforms allow everyone to express their opinions heading for a Supreme Court day in court, advertisers fearful of blowback and the EU stepping up to insist that Twitter actually moderate speech, the stage is set for a tumultuous 2023. Lawsuits, government intervention or Sec 230 reforms are all possibilities but the problems will escalate before a solution is found. 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 91Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGoogle has finally admitted to the bug that caused local businesses to lose all of their reviews AND rank visibility. Google appears to have fixed many of those businesses reported over the weekend. But as is typical with Google it took public embarrassment to get them to acknowledge and fix this serious bug. It highlights both their PR strategy and their totally inadequate customer service.  Included are tips on how to distinguish this bug from the many other reasons your location is currently losing reviews.This Moz survey cataloging user motivations around reviews confirms what we know about user behaviors. What is the number 1 reason that users leave bad reviews? What does “Peak Reviews” mean in terms of user behaviors? Why is this and how will it impact reviews going forward.Google promotes lame store finder to bulk GPB users, adding insult to the injury of NMX interfaceGoogle introduced a Store Finder product in June and in a typically bad timing twist,  just started promoting it to bulk Google Business Profile accounts.  The Store Finder is a poorly executed product with bad SEO and no target audience except those users that rely on the bulk interface and.  To add insult to injury they are promoting it while simultaneously forcing bulk users in the new search interface aka NMX (New merchant experience). This new search interface is disorganized with a terrible UI. But it is particularly difficult for Google Bulk accounts that attempt to manage their listings via the location dashboard as they need to continually move back and forth between two dramatically different interfaces searching for hidden features.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 90Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGoogle has been on a review tear of late and many reviews are being nuked that the new filter “thinks” violates the TOS. But not all review take downs by Google are legit. And a new bug seems to be affecting Google Business Profiles: when Google pushes a Suggested edit update, the profile changes CID numbers and loses their reviews. Businesses that lose reviews need to be prepared for this eventuality and put in place a plan to recover the reviews if lost.  Darren Shaw of Whitespark discovered a new test by Google that shows how many in market reviews a reviewer left. On the surface this would appear helpful to shoppers looking to validate the reviewer and the reviews more easily. But like all reviews it is probably a false hope as location can be spoofed. Regardless, it surfaces the fact that Google is closely tracking and using the physical relationship between the reviewer and the business. In the forums, it is apparent that Google has consistently nuked more reviews from service type businesses which don’t get reviewer visits and the further that reviewer is away, the more likely it is to be filtered. Most internet companies pay lip service to brand building but continue to favor short-term performance marketing. That typically means paid-search and paid social. AirBnB offers an interesting counterpoint and case study in decreasing reliance on paid search. The company just reported its "biggest and most profitable quarter" to date. On the company's Q3 earnings call, CFO Dave Stephenson said AirBnB's focus has been "on the overall brand ... and to be less reliant on search engine marketing." He explained that 90% of of the company's traffic is "direct or organic." Can other companies do the same? Yes but it requires a true commitment to puting the customer first and building a strong relationship based on trust and not just giving that idea lip service.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 89Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textMarcus Tober, SVP of Enterprise Solutions for Semrush, joins Greg and David for this episode of the Near Memo. The trio discusses Semrush’s recent zero-click search study in depth. Conceived as a slightly more nuanced follow-up to Sparktoro/Rand Fishkin’s provocative original look at this concept, Marcus takes us through some of the important high-level findings. There’s of course plenty of discussion around what this means for locally-oriented marketers, and how marketers should use the results of the study to inform their overall SEO strategy.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 88Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textDescriptionShopify study shows much higher churn than WooCommerce, why & what are the implications?A recent study in the Mails & Globe explores retention over the past 3 years of the major e-commerce platforms. They concluded that Shopify's retention was one of the lowest particularly compared to Woo Commerce. Is this a failure on the part of Shopify or just a reflection of how easy it is to get started with the product? While interesting, does the study tell the whole story?SEMRush zero click study makes the case that the web clicks are still kingSEMRush recently completed an in-depth study of zero click behavior on Google. While the study largely ignored local search, its findings were much more granular than previous work in this area. When you discount query refinement, and users that move to a different part of Google after the initial query, that Google is sending roughly 25% of users to its own answers while sending 43% on to other websites. Apple Maps Vs Google Maps Functionality in EuropeSegment 3 desc: During his recent travels in the UK, Portugal and Italy, Mike Blumenthal used biking, driving and walking directions as well as restaurant and hotel discovery features in both Google and Apple Maps. Google’s biking directions won out as Apple doesn’t offer them in Europe yet. Google’s hospitality POIs were so good that there was no need for TripAdvisor or other 3rd party apps. But when it came to driving directions and walking directions Apple Maps was consistently superior for a tourist.Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textKrystal Taing, Director of Pre-Sales Solutions for Uberall and Google Business Profile Platinum Product Expert, joins Greg and David for this episode of the Near Memo. The trio discusses Google’s latest visually-significant ad update and implications for both paid and organic marketers. David then laments the rapid increase in GBP-related bugs and complaints over the course of the last several months and the team discusses GBP’s strategic place in Mountain View. Krystal closes the show by highlighting the acceleration of the store-within-a-store trend and how brands with outlets that fit this model should think about their local listings.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 86Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textAllie Margeson, Director of SEO Services for Whitespark, joins Greg and David for this episode of the Near Memo. She takes a deeper dive into the logic behind, and the mechanics of, Whitespark’s new three-tiered service offering which involves not just Google Business Profile optimization but website updates and linkbuilding.Allie and Whitespark have a unique perspective on serving small businesses that most agencies and SaaS companies ignore, due to the difficulty of serving them profitably. She shares some behind-the-scenes information about Whitespark’s delivery model and go-to-market strategies that make this service effective for its clients and profitable for its bottom line.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 85Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/