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…

Brands, Local Dominate Top Searches — Food near me and restaurants near me are the leading local queries in the top 1,000 keywords according to a recent analysis (using Ahrefs data) by Shopify’s Director of SEO Kevin Indig. Both are in the top 25. Overall, there were 126 “near me” searches out of 1K keywords, roughly…

Debating the Outlook for Facebook — A number of speculative articles have recently appeared, some undoubtedly driven by schadenfreude, about whether Facebook/Meta is merely pivoting or foundering. For example, the WSJ opines: “Meta … seems to be genuinely threatened in the near term by several factors that could hurt its revenue and reach.” The list includes…

Amazon Eyeing ‘Local Ads’ Opportunity — Earlier this week job listings for an Amazon Local Ads “startup business within Amazon Ads” appeared. One listing for a senior BD manager reads, “This individual will manage some of our high impact partner relationships as we create a brand new business and revenue stream for Amazon Advertising.” The job…