What do you think? 

Currently the race is for the top positions on page 1, how much different will it be if users are shown 20 results, AND a Local Listing from Google Maps (another 7 results) on page 1?  This will change the face of SEO permanently, and no doubt other search engines will follow suite.

Personally, I hope the top 10 remains for all searches and all users, but only time will tell.

Currently this testing has been limited to some search results in the US as well as in Australia.  The concept and thinking behind this is that people recognise brands by name and by their icons or logos, and the thought is that this will make it easier for searchers to locate the brand and company they are looking for more easily.

Also this is a ‘paid’ service so will have very little, if any, impact on Local SEO – but it would be a good idea for all SEO consultants out there to be aware of this, as it could be asked by clients.

The basic details on the costs would be a Cost per Impression basis – different to the normal pay per click method used by AdWords – companies will be charged every time their logo is displayed, regardless if a user clicks on it or not.  This could also mean ‘paying for nothing’ and conversion rates could be very low.

Personally, this is one feature of Google I would probably not recommend.

So what does this mean to all the SEO experts out there?

Firstly, perhaps a ‘simpler’ method of optimisation – it is now effectively a two way battle for search engine dominance.  Yahoo/Bing vs Google.

Secondly, a valuable source of data, Yahoo’s Site explorer is lost.  Apparently this is not going to be incorporated into the system, so we will wait and see.  There are avenues around this SEO problem, for instance you can go to www.seomoz.org and use their tools or employ other tools from ranking software and backlink checkers.  Even Google’s web master tools show more link data than it used to.

Thridly, another level of excitement has been added as SEO specialists will try dig into both ‘search engines’ and try find that missing key to search engine algorithms.

Well, thats enough from me for tonight.

Now, over the last couple of months – if not years – Google has been playing with several ideas, and updates to both search products and others.

My thoughts – is Google taking on too much by this?  They are now challenging Skype for Voice over IP dominance.  And yes, Gmail (and probably with Gtalk) you can call Phones – land lines and mobile.

Is this useful?  Of course.  But many people who need such a service would already be using Skype  The only way that Google could beat them is by lowering the costs and been more competitive.

And they are – for the rest of 2010 calls within the USA and Canada are effectively free.  Calls outside of the country range from as little as 2c (US) per minute to around the 40c a minute mark for both land and mobile calls.

Right now, only time will tell if this will be hit or another black hole for Google.

Nothing major mind you, just a little GUI system update when you dig a little deeper into the traffic sources.

The little drop down boxes to select keyword/landing page etc now show a small block with categorised items much like filters do (advanced filters or segments)

Good one Google.

Just wish you had a separate source for Google Places Traffic,

Now we are in Australia, so down scale a bit… We can only guess at the number at this stage, but based on US data this is definitely the right time for ALL businesses to get in on Google Places and its easy to do.

Google Places is almost like having your own “website” in Google itself, and if you already have an existing site you can always send the traffic there as well. Free advertising, who is going to say no to that. My advice, check Google Maps now for your business, and claim it. This is your first step to Local SEO

For the last couple of weeks I have been trying to find out how to track Google Places traffic in your Google Analytics accounts, and so far there seems to be no easy way to do it.

My thought, still to be tested, is to create a landing page on your website that is targeted by the Google Places listing.  This page is not linked to from any other page on your site however – meaning there would be very little chance for the data to be poluted.  Remember though that this page, your Google Places Landing Page must have all the standard navigation of any other page on your website, enabling the visitor to navigate your site and find the contact details or enquiry form.

I will try to test this in the coming days and see what happens but if anyone has ideas, feel free to comment here….

Now that may not sound hard from some of you, but I drink anywhere between 5 and 8 cups a day.  3 before 10am.  So this will be HARD but I think it will be worth it too.

Starting Date is the 21st of June till the 27th of June.  Wish me Luck.

Oh if anyone has any other Challenge Ideas please let me know – I stole this one from Matt Cutts – he went 30 days.

With the recent updates and changes in Google’s own WMT it is not surprising that the other search engines, like Bing from Microsoft, are jumping on board and trying to one up the search engine giant.

As it standards, the current Bing WMT have the basics: sitemap submission (only one), keywords, and search terms as well as showing errors and the like.  I would be keen to see what the updates bring later this year (USA Summer).

Read more over at Web Pro News

And, in the case of Google, it was taking the engine out of that little VW Beetle and replacing it with a super power Porche engine.

So, what does this mean to blokes like you and I?  Simple, it means Google has gotten a whole lot faster at delivering content to internet users.  It means pages of your website are discovered and indexed, and thus ranked, a lot quicker and it means that fresh, new content is essential for your website to stay in its position.

SEO Tip #1

Ensure you update your website on a regular basis.  Add pages daily, or weekly but keep to the same rhythm and schedule.  Don’t upload a new article every day for a week and then don’t do anything for a month.  This will actually hurt you.

Rather upload articles over the course of the week, one ever other day is sufficient and usually I would not recommend adding more than 1 page a day.

What this does, is that Google crawls your site, and then learns that ever x amount of days it must come back to look for more information.  The more it finds the juicy content there, the more Google comes back and the more your site improves in ranking.

Content remains king.