Google announced recently that you may now see up to 10 Local results on Google’s organic results page. Typically a user used to see anywhere from 1 - 3 results.

Google states that the reason that they are showing more links is that during usability testing, it was revealed that many people did not realize there are additional local searches beyond the 3 listings. Despite the “more results…” prompt, it was still not obvious to many users that more results could be found. Google hopes that listing 10 links will be a clearer indicator that more local content is a click away.

According to Google - the ranking of those ten results is based on a range of factors, including the query, proximity, availability of ratings/reviews and their quality and several other variables.

With Google now displaying up to 10 local results, it becomes more and more apparent that adding your business to Google Local is a crucial step.

For more information: http://searchengineland.com/080123-085354.php

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Contributed by: Karen Lo, Milestone Internet Marketing

This post is about the serious of issue of having only one domain name versus having many domains with variations.

Google is launching its innovative new Pay-Per-Action service (http://services.google.com/payperaction/) where advertisers can increase their web reach while paying only for actions that you define. First, you create an ad and define the action that you want a user to perform when they visit your site, such as signing up for your newsletter or purchasing a product. Then you’ll set the amount that you’re willing to pay when this action is completed. Finally, you’ll install a conversion tracking code on your website so that we can verify when an action has been completed.

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Google has launched a free phone information service called Goog 411 (800-466-4411). All you have to do is call 800-Goog-411 and tell the automatic voice what city and state. Once you give the business name, it will connect you to that business. If you say category, it will give you the top 8 results in the order that they appear in the local search results. If you are signed up for Local Google, you will be listed in Goog 411.

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Google is now mixing news results directly into the organic listing. If you go to Google.com and type in a search for President Bush, along with the search results, you will also find the latest news results. For example, when you type Prince Harry, you will even get images for Prince Harry along with news results and other organic results.

Google’s mixed results validate the importance of focusing on news sites and also naming your images. This feature is not released to mainstream searches but as soon as it is released, you can see how news sites are driving a huge amount of traffic.

The reason that Google is the most popular search engine on the planet is because this powerhouse engine keeps reinventing itself by developing new, exciting products that break the barriers of the status quo. Recently, they have launched several new tools that ensure a better user experience and qualitative search results. So, let’s see what’s new with Google this season.
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Google is the “big boy” of search engines both in popularity with users and in sheer numbers. They claim to be “searching” 3,083,324,652 Web pages on their home page these days. Googlebot, Google’s spider, is supposedly one of the most intelligent on the Web.