Google recently announced a new cog in its paid search advertising machine - sponsored local search listings. The new feature, aimed primarily at small, local businesses with limited advertising budgets, allows business owners to leverage their Google Local Business Search listings and show up in the coveted map results on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Some noteworthy features of this new program:

• Businesses will be billed a flat monthly rate, so ongoing management is less necessary.
• Businesses will be ranked based on category and physical proximity to the searcher.
• Businesses will have the option of a built-in call tracking service.

Currently the program is only available in the San Francisco and San Diego. Whether local paid search prices are linked to AdWords pricing also remains to be seen.

Google keeps its algorithms for ranking websites firmly under wraps. However, the company just revealed its methods for choosing which news stories to publish on Google News. Even explaining the way it works, however, Google shows some contradictory rules. According to a video released by Google, there are four basic rules used to rank news stories.

The algorithm attempts to immitate consumer behavior as closely as possible. To do this, it looks for new stories with established citations. It also gives more weight to local sources but prefers trusted sources. Striking the right balance seems to be the key to a highly ranked news story. This also applies to the search engine, for which Google has not and likely will not reveal its algorithm.

If you would like to know more about search engine optimization, contact The Search Engine Guys, LLC at 800-267-1704.

A report published by Pew Foundation showed that approximately 84% of all internet users use search engines. Going a step further, nearly half of all internet users use search engines frequently. These users turn to search engines for all kinds of information to help them in their daily lives. Many of them use search engines on a daily basis.

Because so many people turn immediately to search engines for information, it is important for any business to make sure it can be found. Unlike with a phone book, you do not simply pay for a spot. Every website that comes up on Google or any other search engine is given placement based on its relevancy.

If you would like to know more about search engines and how they work, contact The Search Engine Guys, LLC at 800-267-1704.

According to comscore.com, Bing gained market share on Yahoo and Google. They gained .3% market share on each search engine between June and July. Most columns I have read are spinning this as a positive for Bing, and we can certainly see that angle. However, we do not view Bing as the Google Killer. In fact, we thought the initial bump from all of the hype and advertising behind Bing would lead to higher gains in marketshare.This reminds me a little of cuil.com (the so-called Google Killer), followed by Wolfram Alpha (the other, other Google Killer). A lot of hype and marketing, and then they slowly die off or become an insignificant player with respect to marketshare. We do not think Bing will become insignificant, but we do not see it gaining too much market share.

Although it is nice to see competition in the marketplace, the problem for these other search engines is that Google does a phenomenal job and returns results quickly. We personally think most of the efforts to improve search are pretty futile. When is the last time someone said something to the effect of, "Google search is terrible," or "I never find what I want?" That is the issue. We understand that everything can and will be improved, but I think that if someone is going to take on Google, they are going to have come up with a different spin on how they compete.

We think what may end up hurting Google is the fact that consumers may start to feel a little leary of the company having too much data on them, and becoming a little too big brother. If I was competing against Google, we would use the angle that we are not mining data from the individual user and that searches are private or deleted within 3 months, something to ease that worry. The battle for search in the future should be interesting and fun to watch.