Still at Bill's excellent site, we have word of new Place Rank and Interestingness ranking and scoring mechanisms. It seems that Google's taking more user generated content a la Gmail and Feedburner and using it to mark up maps and Google Earth.
Over at GoodROI we find out that Yahoo has modified their SERPs with some local data. On a search for McDonald's, Greg found a new link under McDonald's main site result that lets you find McDonald's locations near you! Yahoo've also done some other things to their SERPs, so go see what Greg has to say.
Still on the Yahoo SERPs, it looks like they've got more than "locations near you" added. There are also Flickr-based slideshows directly integrated into the results, OneBox style (I know Yahoo won't like me saying OneBox style, but what're ya gonna do, eh? hehe). Try searching for Montreal, Canada or as Yahoo Search's Lingxian Ding did, Phuket, Thailand.
Google Maps' ranking factors and algorithm are being researched very thoroughly by local search expert Mike Blumenthal. Mike's got several posts about the algorithm's factors, including some noteworthy comparisons to Google's OneBox results.
For those of you who like more old-school type SEO, Mike Blumenthal has a great post concerning directories that Google cares about in regards to its Maps algorithm. The directory factor still carries weight apparently, though as in the general search algorithm, that weight has greatly decreased since its heyday.
Another very insightful post of his considers the difference between Google OneBox results and Google Maps results. It appears that the OneBox results are focused towards more established venues with enough reviews to have a star rating (the more stars the better, obviously).
The cutoff to have a star rating, from looking at Mike's data, seems to be roughly 10-15 reviews; any less and no stars will appear. This is likely to avoid skewing the data based on only a handful of reviews.
In any event, I encourage you all to subscribe to Mike's "Understanding Google Maps and Yahoo Local" RSS feed if you're interested in local search. His blog is a great resource both on optimizing for local search as well as for local search news.
SEO Montreal is a Montreal-based local Search Engine Optimization consulting company. Nous sommes une agence spécialisée dans le référencement. It is part of the SEO ROI family.
