Thanks Matt!  Am hopeful other pros will continue to weigh in with more great insights, in comments.  More to come in this series next week.

There is a TON of valuable info, more so that usual, due to the duel Google Places algos are currently in play.

I scanned the draft on Tues before it published, but need to make time this weekend to really sit down and analyze in more detail. If you work with Google Places or local SEO be sure to set aside some time this weekend to try to get through it all.

I've been trying to digest every article I can find about the changes and this is one of the most informative. But it also has the most chilling news for anyone that does LOCAL SEO.

"Google said that the algorithm has been improved and refined for Place Search. We also shouldn’t see any more of the “mapspam” that has plagued the 7-Pack in the past. Previously the local and general search algorithms were distinct. I asked whether they had now been consolidated or merged in this new release and was told “yes.”"

As someone who USED to do regular SEO and now specializes in Google Places optimization, I've gotta tell you this is rocking my world a bit.  The algo is TOTALLY different now for local and very much tied into a client's organic ranking.

I have BOTH results right now. The old on Firefox and the new results on Chrome. So I've been doing major testing back and forth on some of my client's local rankings and what I'm discovering is pretty interesting!  Most of my clients were already page 1 on local and luckily have gone even higher on the new results. But what's interesting is the change in what it's going to take to GET someone to the top from scratch.

Changes are still rolling out and the layout is pretty flaky at times, so I guess we'll have to see where things are at after the dust settles.

I can tell you one thing for sure though. Anyone like me, who has a purely LOCAL optimization business will quickly have to switch gears, adjust their business model/service offering and re-think their entire optimization strategy.

However, with change comes opportunity!  My mind is reeling with possibilities.  :-)

Linda

I've been one of the most vocal on Google Places recently in that 9/23 buggy update thread and here's a MAJOR problem I have. And it makes my heart literally hurt sometimes for these poor small business people that can't get any help!

Yes Google Places is a free service...

AND if Places was a mature, bug-free, easy to understand, self service platform - they would not need that much support...

HOWEVER 90% of the problems on the forum are from bugs and/OR a totally broken scraping mechanism that continuously creates bogus duplicates and overwrites VERIFIED merchant data with sloppy erroneous data it pulls from who knows where.

If you stripped away specific buggy problems like rashes of missing reviews or lines through images or broken QR codes.

If you stripped away complaints about being rejected, suspended or pending review. Which are sometimes deserved end-user caused problems. (But are also often times innocent mistakes like a Plumber in Dallas making the horrible mistake of putting in his description that he's - of all terrible things - A what?  A plumber in Dallas!)

If you stripped away what some would consider dumb questions - however they are from small business people who maybe aren't that technical, so you can't blame them for being confused.

THEN WHAT YOU ARE LEFT WITH, when you really think about it  - are the MYRIAD of problems that Google itself causes.

A businesses phone number or website being changed to the wrong number or worse yet, a competitor's info (due to scraped data). Who can blame these poor business people who are loosing customers, for wanting support! Duplicate problems (due to scraped data) Who can blame them when their ranking tanks due to a dupe stealing 90 reviews, like just happened to one of my clients. Split, rogue, ghost or mirror dupes. (Due to bugs and/or scraping). Missing tags, double ghost tags, can't cancel tags or when they added tags then other problems cropped up (due to bugs). Broken QR codes (bugs). I could go on & on & on!

Anyone who lives Google Places like I do and spends lots of time on the forum I think would agree  - that a great majority of the problems are caused by Google and not operator error.

So when Google's own system is what causes so many problems for these poor small business people, I think GOOGLE should be held accountable, fix the problems and offer support  - EVEN IF PLACES is a free service!

I am so busy with dupes, bugs, troubleshooting and a myriad of problems - I've had to stop accepting clients because I am so buried in problems with existing clients I can't take on any new ones.

Can you tell I'm a little frustrated?/endrant

Linda

(Copying this over at Mike's too.)

I'm the lucky one that's just happens to be sitting on the data center that evidently no one else can see. ;-) So I gave Mike all the screen shots and worked with him on the story.

There is another totally different layout that they are testing too. I gave it to Mike, but don't think he's uploaded yet. It gives an even different perspective on where Google may be heading.

If this change hits, it's really going to shake things up and make Google Places an even more important spot to optimize for - if you have a local business. It makes local MUCH more prominent and pushes organic way down the page.

Linda

Good one! I'll be blogging the above post this AM, but here's another post I'll be adding.

It's not specifically for affiliates, but can be used by affiliates for a variety of purposes like niche research and finding the right people to follow.

It goes into advanced Google operators to search Twitter. VERY good stuff and ties right into the article above!

7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing

Enjoy and happy tweeting!

Thanks Lisa. You did the best job liveblogging the Summit. I covered all your posts and all the  the other Summit coverage at my blog.  Thanks for making it almost as good as being there, for those of us who couldn't attend!