Search Engine Tigers

This advanced operator has apparently been around in Google Experimental for over a year, but since I only came across it recently, it’s new to me, so maybe it is to you.

So what does view:map do? Basically, by adding it to the end of any regular query in Google, you’ll get a results page with a map, and on that map will be markers, and a list of listings that contains some form of geographic identifier. As you can see below posts of mine talk about trips I’ve taken and trips I’m about to take.

Now there are some false positives, I’ve never talked about Texas, but as my name appears on a popular blog near where someone else talks about working for a firm in Texas, it’s picked up, but on the whole it’s pretty good about showing the right results.

So how can this help you? Well, potentially it can enable you to see what locations your product is being talked about in conjunction with (note, not necessarily where the people that are talking about your product are). Sure only 10 listings doesn’t give you much, so go ahead and add &num=100 to the query string to get up to 100 results that mention geo-terms and see what happens. Below is the result for “Specialized Information Publishers Association”

As you can see there’s discussion about their conferences in DC, Chicago, their headquarters in McLean (hey, they’re just around the corner from me), talk about a sponsor in Hawaii, and about a board member from London. How can this help them? Well let’s say that there was a groundswell of SIPA members talking about how there really needs to be a conference in Lancaster, PA. The fact that that location would show up on this map would give them that information, and they could then investigate to see whether there really was any kind of demand for moving one of their conferences out to NYC strip mall shopping central Amish country.

All in all it’s an interesting tool, but there are some false positives that show up in the system that detract slightly from the results, which is probably why it’s still in Google Experimental. Anyway, go give it a play, and if you think of some great use for it, please share.

I’ve just posted a review of CauseWired:Plugging in, Getting Involved, Changing the World (Wiley, Nov 10, 2008) over on the EndlessPlain blog, If you’re in the nonprofit field, take a look at what I have to say, as it’s a book that you’ll most likely want to have on your desk.

I’ll be speaking on the topic of Buzz Monitoring during the “Search and Reputation Management” session at SMX-East. This event is taking place October 6-8 in New York City, with my session being held on the Monday from 3.45 to 5pm. If you’re going to be there please feel free to pop over and say hello to me, or just even attend the session (there are going to be 3 other great speakers, with some really interesting topics, including one that sounds to me like it’ll be a new approach to presenting on this topic – the future of reputation).

If you’ve not booked your ticket for SMX-East yet, then how about a $150 saving on the all access pass? Just enter the discount code smxspeak when registering and smile at the savings.

See you there.

From time to time trolls will attack you and / or your company, most likely for no reason whatsoever. Sometimes they’re just in it for ‘fun’, sometimes it’s to be malicious, other times it can be simply because they’re angry. So what should you do when one of these hateful little trolls pops up and decides that you or your company is the bane of their existence and should be treated as though you ripped a puppy from their waif like hands before callously throwing it in front of a steamroller while laughing maniacally twiddling your overly large comedy mustache.

The first step is to identify the hateful little trolls from the real people who have an issue that can be resolved. Usually it’s in the language that they use, and the way that they self-justify everything that they say and do, despite all evidence to the contrary (SMG has a great post detailing the differences between a troll and an upset customer).

Now, there are a few different types of trolls that exist in this online world, and here’s my breakdown of the kinds I’ve seen:

1. The attention seeker – “Look at me, look at me”
2. The instigator – just wanting to provoke a response
3. The righteous indignant – the only opinion that exists is theirs, all must bend to their will
4. The two faced liars – When you communicate with them they claim to have an understanding with you, then revert to their prior troll-like existence once they’re back in public
5. The ‘ethical moralist’ – Communicating with you one on one they are foul mouthed and abusive, back in public they claim to take the moral high ground
6. The multi-faceted troll – Take any combination of the above to create your own hateful little troll

So, what should you do with these hateful little trolls? I expect you’re thinking that I’m going to say that you should just ignore them, and that ’sticks and stones… etcetera, etcetera’, well that is, unfortunately, one of the best ways to deal with these ‘people’, if you don’t feed the trolls they will generally tire and go away to harass their next victim.

But what about the collateral damage? What about the comments and the posts and the reviews, and the people that they may influence? Well, in those cases the best defense is to get your evangelists out there putting out good content about you, giving them the tools and the opportunity to defend you by offsetting those negative reviews with positive ones, the truth will come out, and those lone voices will be seen for what they are, people who don’t deserve attention, or the spotlight turning on them for even a fraction of a second.

So the best way to kill a hateful little troll is with silence while it sits in the dark slowly fading away. Now it may squeal and grunt in a desperate attempt to be noticed, but to do so would give it power, so don’t give in, resist the temptation.

While doing a little updating on my Local Search slides for Search Camp Philly (pcphilly08) I noticed that between February and tonight Google has modified their disclaimer text at the bottom of each PPC geotargeting page. Take a look, back in February -

…and now -

As you can see they’ve now pushed it front and center that “You may receive clicks from outside our targeted locations”.

Tomorrow I’ll be jumping on the Amtrak train from DC to Philadelphia in advance of SearchCamp Philly, a low cost conference, with a high grade of presenter. For the price of $21 you can attend 2 days of presentations on topics from Blogging to SEO to PPC to Usability and beyond, given by such luminaries as Kim Krause Berg, Debbei Weil, Geoff Livingston, Li Evans of Key Relevance, and well… me. I’ll be on 4 sessions over the weekend, 2 being site clinics (which still have open slots if you’d like to have us look your site over), and the others being a presentation on Local Search, and one on Social Bookmarking sites.

Next month I’ll once again be taking the train over the Mason-Dixon line, but this time I’ll be heading further up the track to New York City for the inaugural Search Marketing Expo East (SMX-E) show from October 6th – 8th. At this show I’ll be presenting on a panel on the topic of Search and Reputation Management (Monday the 6th from 3.45 – 5pm). There’s still plenty of time to register for this conference too.

I hope to see you at either or maybe even both.