A week or so ago, we reported how Google removed SEOs from local pack in the search results. The move caused a pretty big debate in the industry where many SEOs felt this was a nail in the coffin for Google really hating the SEO industry. Personally, I think it is a fun debate, but I don’t think all of Google hates the industry.
In any event, Joel H. from the Google Maps team updated the Google Maps Help thread with a revised statement, implying that Google may change their minds on this decision. He said:
I think I understand both sides of the issue: I understand that local search results can have a positive impact for some businesses. But I also see that some SEOs/web designers want their website, not a local listing, to be the primary destination. And I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience – to display primarily web search results for some of these queries. Using words in or near seem to be suggestive of a different intent. In the end, these search results will fluctuate as we fine tune our results pages to get the user the best answer.
Again, he said, “I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience.” He also then went on to explain why the words in or near don’t always provide a clear indicator of local intent.
In any event, if I had to guess – Google will wait to see how both searchers approach the missing SEO or web design related local packs. They will also see if SEOs and web designers calm down over this change. I assume if SEOs don’t calm down about the change, Google might consider adding it back. But clearly, Google finds the categories either not relevant or too hard to handle from a spam perspective.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
Get the Freshest Information on Developing News
Starting today, you can see relevant photos, videos, and tweets about a breaking news story on the Yahoo! News Shortcut. Many of you are already familiar with the existing Yahoo! News Shortcut, which displays headlines on our Web search results page when you look for news stories. The enhanced shortcut with these new tabs will [...]
Starting today, you can see relevant photos, videos, and tweets about a breaking news story on the Yahoo! News Shortcut. Many of you are already familiar with the existing Yahoo! News Shortcut, which displays headlines on our Web search results page when you look for news stories. The enhanced shortcut with these new tabs will now display for many breaking or major news searches.
For example, if you searched Space Shuttle Atlantis just after it was launched this week, you would have seen news, photo, video, and Twitter tabs in the news shortcut:
If you are interested in visual information about your query, check out the photos and videos tabs, which pull information from Yahoo! News. You can scroll to see more photos and videos from within the new shortcut.
Here is an example of the photos tab:
And the videos tab:
If you want more immediate, user-generated content, check out the Twitter tab. There, you will find recent tweets and related videos that have been shared on Twitter.
This is our first integration of fresh, social content like Twitter into Web search, and we are planning to continue along these lines. In the future, we will enhance your search experience with more real-time content so you can find all the information you need about an unfolding news event in one place.
Try it out and let us know what you think in the comments section.
Ivan Davtchev and Nitzan Achsaf
Yahoo! Search