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.

Google has long dominated the search engine market, but now that Bing has been introduced, people are starting to wonder whether or not it works better. The short and simple answer is: probably not. As search engines go, it's difficult to get much better than Google already is. On the other hand, every user has different needs and preferences.

Because of this, there have been several mashup sites for search engines.  One of the foremost is called Blind Search. Made by a Microsoft employee, the program lists three columns of search results from Google, Yahoo and Bing in a random order. You then vote on the column that is most useful to you, telling you which search engine fits you best.

There are several other sites out there as well performing similar functions. In the end, however, the search results on the sites tend to be fairly similar. From an SEO standpoint, this means that optimizing for Google is still the best choice.

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

Google has announced its new "Caffeine" architecture and has had testers using and reviewing. So far there have been both good and bad reviews, but one in particular stands out. Caffeine seems to be more of a changed algorithm rather than a totally new architecture. If this is true, it is really no different from the old Google.

While a final version of Caffeine has not yet been launched, some are speculating that it is more of a diversion to keep people from engines like Bing. Even so, however, placement on Caffeine is different and could affect SEO to some degree. For some searches, placement dropped several spots between the two types of Google, something that could happen with every change in algorithm on the old engine.

If you would like to know more about optimizing for google, contact The Search Engine Guys, LLC at 800-267-1704.