Google Readies New Local-Ad Assault via the Wall Street Journal talks about a new effort Google is going to take to target local businesses with local ads. This is not new, Google has been trying to do this for years and now Google is going after it again.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Google Inc. GOOG has repeatedly tried, and largely failed, to crack the market for local business advertising. As early as next month, the Internet company will try anew, as it trains its largest-ever assault on the roughly $20 billion market.Google plans to have its newest small-business service - which at one point it was calling Business Builder - up and running as early as July, said a person familiar with the matter.
The project combines several products and services aimed at small businesses under a single banner. It is based on a mix of internally developed software and recently acquired technologies that the company hopes eventually will bring in billions of dollars a year in new revenue.
A WebmasterWorld thread has the moderator replying as follows:
Seems like divide and conquer of the search 'problem'. Credibility & positive feedback to play a bigger role in ranking rather than links and anchor text. If google can automatically take you to a froogle like search rather than generic search when it's relevant, you can see why they'd want to.Alternatively they could just send searchers to their country's Yellow Pages who already do reviews, rankings etc.
The lines of Google products and solving the search problem are always being pushed.
Do you think Google will succeed this time?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
