I recently got an email directly from Google congratulating me on reaching 100 million views on my Google Maps photos. That’s 100,000,000 views. I was particularly surprised that I reached that many views on photos I’ve uploaded to Google Maps business listings. However, I knew that I was getting close as I had recently seen that I was at about 90 million views, thinking that I needed to go out and take more photos. I thought I would go ahead and tell you how I reached this number of views. I’ll go through my process, and explain some of the benefits from doing what I do. [Read more…]

Google is sending out emails to businesses, using a type of scare tactic, to inform them that upcoming legislation could harm their business. In the email, they state that if legislative bills are passed, the changes could make it harder for customers to find your business, hurt your productivity, and cost your business time and money. In reality, the legislation is designed to ultimately protect businesses from companies like Google. [Read more…]

Add this to the list of Google services that they’ve created and then shut down. Google Cameos (also known as Cameos on Google) is shutting down on February 17, 2022, just less than a month from now. On that date, if you have access to Google Cameos, then you will no longer be able to record and upload videos.

Google is showing, and in many cases, ranking Amazon’s search results in their search results pages. If you search for a keyword in Google, such as ‘smores k cups’, one of the top ranking results in Google’s organic search results is Amazon’s search results page for that same keyword, ‘smores k cups’. This is a big deal for several reasons, but I don’t think it’s acceptable to rank search results pages in the search results pages. It’s just a bad user experience overall. [Read more…]

Google has entered the auto industry so to speak, as they are now showing new car pricing and and trim level options right in their search engine results pages. A friend spotted these results when searching for the 2022 Chevrolet Tahoe LT. Google oftentimes runs tests like this, showing certain data or a certain configuration in the results, before they eventually roll out the feature for all users. Sometimes these search result features end up going live for all users, and in other cases they end up not being made live, as the test for the feature is not successful. [Read more…]

Have you ever searched for an address on Google Maps, checked out the Street View 360 degree photos, and found that an entire location, building, or house is blurred? Google usually uses their technology to automatically blur faces and license plates. But, did you know that upon request you can get your house or building blurred? If you’re interested in getting Google to blur the photo of your house, for example, then there is actually a way to request that they blur your house’s photo on Google Maps. Here is how to do that. [Read more…]