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---- Google Sells Out - AdWords Showing in Local Organic Results
KenShafer - 5:55 pm on Feb 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
Here's my take on it:
1) Paying doesn't affect ranking:
"Please keep in mind that enhancing your listing won't help it show more often then it already does. You can highlight the information a customer sees -- hopefully making your listing more attractive to the user -- but it won't increase how often your listing is shown."
2) This is only available in the Local Business Listings (only San Jose & Houston, currently)
3) You can add the following to your listing:
Website for your business. (seems a little redundant)
Photos of your business.
Videos of your business.
Coupons for your listing.
Menu for your restaurant.
Reservations page for your business.
Driving directions to your business
Now, if you don't show/rank anywhere, it's pretty useless...which only increases the importance of Local SEO tactics, btw.
Yes this is actually a Google offering that is GOOD for SEO professionals. Would they release this for the natural listings (via webmaster tools, microformat, sitemap, etc.)? If I were a retailer, I'd certainly pay $50/mo to have my coupon code advertised in my snippet. Heck, I'd probably pay more. Think of the exposure. (Think about how that would affect all of those coupon sites! Yeesh!) It could promote the benefit of implementing a property SEO strategy...ROI on that paid "enhancement." It would already promote this at the local level.
In the hopes of toning down the hyperbole... Is it an interesting add-on to your local listing? Definitely! Is Google "selling out"? Not really. I think the inclusion of the word "sponsored" could be a little misleading but, other than that, I'm hoping it'll further open the door to continued acceptance and inclusion of microformatted data creating richer snippets... which is really all this is. A paid way to create a fancier rich snippet.
I'd actually like to see how far they could expand this offering. Could they include a collapsible AJAX contact form under the listing? That would be interesting.
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