Google UK Local - the most recent email from Yell.

Dear Bill

Thank you for your query about the ability to be found on Google Local under Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.

In response to a local search for "search engine optimisation" or "SEO", Google Local will draw on data from Yell.com to locate matching businesses. As search engine optimisation is not a classification heading within Yell.com data, Google will look for the term within the enhanced data we provide for companies advertising with Yell.com. Google also draw on web crawled data to match the terms and then match company names to contact details from Yell.com to supplement this data.

The best way to ensure your details are matched to searches for Search Engine Optimisation and SEO search on Google Local is to buy an enhanced listing or Weblink from Yell.com. You can find details of these via our website www.yelldirect.com. If you already have a website, ensuring that the site is optimised for the key terms will help the chances of the site being returned from natural web crawled results.

Kind regards

Barbara Newman

Communications and Brand Development Manager - Yell.com

And there it is for now.

I could point out the obvious disparity between the Google/Yell presentation and previous versions of the established Google business model, ie, it didn't formerly involve paid inclusion presented in the same manner as natural listings, and how despite there being an apparent visual distinction drawn here as in other Googles between Sponsored Listings and organic or natural listings, the listings here (in this instance) look to be all of them paid for. This seems to me misleading.

I could bang on about how risible it is to suggest that optimising my site for key terms would help my inclusion as a peek at Google.com for the seo UK serps reveals me to be among the top ten returned for that term from the choices available on the face of the planet (twice, in fact, at time of writing I'm at 6 & 7), whereas Google Local UK can't even find me under my own post-code.

I could suggest that were I a stockholder in Google I'd be curious about what's happening here as I would have (I'm guessing) spent my money investing in the Google business model and not the Yell one, which had I so chosen I could have probably bought into a great deal cheaper.

I can't see why I should pay to fix the obvious problems with the business model that they (Yell, Google) think will put food on their table - given its inaccuracies it seems likely it'll either get accurate without my intervention or it'll just die a death.

I'll just suggest instead that this performance does not inspire confidence, and leave it at that.

For now, anyway.

BB