A group of 30 digital agencies have joined together and agreed to pay travel expenses for employees who need to obtain abortions in other states. This follows many public companies agreeing to do the same thing following Friday’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. New Agency Consortium The new agency consortium is called Agencies…

Dobbs Creates Personal-Data Minefield — Following the demise of Roe, many companies announced they would pay for abortion-related employee travel: Apple, Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Yelp, Dicks Sporting Goods, Neflix and others. Digital agencies have also formed a coalition called Agencies for Reproductive Rights, which agreed to do the same. These efforts are strong statements but…

Part 1 Video start 0:13 — Is Google Full of ‘SEO Chum’ and Less Useful? Part 2 Video start 4:18 — A Look at Google Local Results without ‘Self-Preferencing’ Part 3 Video start 24:59 — Are people now searching less on Google? Reference Articles: The Open Secret of Google Search Google…

Post-Roe: Data Privacy Now More Urgent — Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, data privacy becomes even more urgent for millions of women. Multiple states, perhaps even a majority, will now ban and even criminalize abortion. States such as Missouri are also trying to penalize anyone who assists an abortion, including out-of-state physicians, abortion pill…

Antitrust legislation before Congress may bring about the end of the Local Pack. Google is quietly testing an alternative. New ‘Local Cards’ have appeared in organic results. They offer less information but still link to GBP pages, not local websites. Even if this test is abandoned, we need to be…

Google Is Full of ‘SEO Chum’ — There’s a growing perception that Google is in decline or dying. This is happening even as its “back end” is becoming much more sophisticated. In a 3,300 word piece in The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel tries to dissect what’s going on. He agrees in general with the idea that Google “is…

Two-Factor Fake Review Fix — Review bombing is becoming a bigger problem. It shows up with games and, more often, movies and TV. Typically, it’s a loosely organized effort driven by some political or ideological agenda (often ugly). In local, it has happened most often to restaurants, with vaccine requirements or for political reasons. Yelp…

1K Keywords: 34% Are Local — Earlier this week we discussed the top 1,000 search keywords (desktop). Two things jumped out: the list is dominated by brand and local queries. The local searches fall into categories: explicit “near-me” lookups, retailer brands (e.g., Walmart), platforms (Google Maps) and generic searches such as gas, restaurants, hotels, liquor stores…

Part 1 Video start 0:13 — Chewy’s provides great CX and it goes viral Part 2 Video start 8:33 — A look at the top 1000 Google queries on the desktop and what it says about local Part 3 Video start 17:58 — John Oliver & Rand Fishkin look…