152 replies to this topic

[DaveBeck]

ephricon, maybe Google is following market trends. I read this week somewhere, that local searching (searching for local companies) accounted for a huge % of searches.

I think the figure quoted was either 60% or 80%, cant remember which. 

This makes a great deal of sense, a lot of my searches are for local issues/businesses. I've always thought that on one hand the Internet opens up global markets, but eventually you will want to deal with someone who you can speak with locally [depending on the type of business]. If I were planning to build a house I would definitely search for local builders and be disappointed if SERPS returned a whole heap of multinationals.

A lot of small business shouldn't try to compete with the large global companies, they just need to get the jump on the local competition, and if the likes of Google can realize this they will always have a loyal following.

[OldWelshGuy]

Funny thing is though Skarraman, that you could be searching locally for information the other side of the world
eg. Let's say I am off to kusadasi in Turkey, and lets say I want to put together a list of essential telephone numbers etc of services. I would search for 'xxx kusadasi' now this is still a local search, and I think that putting weight on a placename above other factors makes absolute sense.

yellow pages ignored the web for a long time, and even now they are not playing fair with advertisers, charging them £200 to register their domain name etc.

Yellow pages is dead in my house, we need something, we search to the point where I will put in a search for 'plumber and 01639' my are telephone code, works a treat every time, as the only plumbers i get, are those who are in my area and have a contact number on their site .

[arman]

Did any one notice on this new Google update that when you check for related pages corresponding to your site it will display result showing all the outbound link's site from your website as related pages?

IMO this new Google tweak is more dumb founded than it has ever been. More you do research on their new update it lead you to believe that Google is interested more in website owners joining their ad words program than give user more relevant result.