The Whitespark Local Update

Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are back with another roundup of the biggest updates, insights, and conversations shaping local SEO and AI search, including: 📝 Google Business Profiles Asking Businesses For EIN (Barry Schwartz) 📝 A masterclass on how to set up AI prompt tracking the RIGHT way (Elizabeth Linder) 📝 More control over the ordering links on Google (Lisa Landsman) 📝 How to build topi...

Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are back to break down the latest news, trends, and developments in local SEO and AI search, including: 📝 Can You Change The Order of Google Business Profile Photos? (Miriam Ellis) 📝 AI Picks the Shortlist: Are You Even Showing Up Locally? (Krystal Taing) 📝 The Local Customer Journey: What AI Has and Hasn't Changed (Duda Webinar with Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal...

Claire Carlile and Elizabeth Linder break down the biggest news and developments from the past week in local SEO, Google, and AI search, including: 📝 How to Coordinate AI Search Optimization Across Marketing Teams (Crawling Mondays by Aleyda) 📝 How to Coordinate AI Search Optimization Efforts Across Areas (Aleyda Solís) 📝 Google Business Profile Now Has Expanded Dietary Attributes (Lisa Landsma...

Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are back with another roundup of the news and updates shaping local SEO and AI search, including: 📝 Google Maps 2026 Fan-Favorite Dining List 📝 How to Use AI Mode’s Follow-Up Questions to Create Non-Commodity Local Service Content (Claudia Tomina) 📝 Your competitors’ negative reviews could improve your PPC ads (Laura I. Abreu) 📝 Re-imagining AI Visibility KPIs in...

Claire Carlile is joined by Elizabeth Linder to cover the biggest stories and updates from the past week in local SEO, Google, and AI search, including: 📝 Google Business Profiles Policies Adds Misuse Of Support Channels (Barry Schwartz) Google Business Profile third-party policies 📝 SEO & AI Tip: Grade Every Page the Way Google's Quality Raters Would, Then Map Them Semantically and Size The...

Darren Shaw is joined by special guest Edward Sturm to break down the biggest local SEO, Google, and AI search news and updates from the past week, including: 📝 Hacking AI Overviews with LinkedIn Hashtags (Steve Toth) 📝 NotebookLM Parasite SEO (Gagan Ghotra) 📝 5 reasons why I'm skeptical of the entire AI tracking industry (Rand Fishkin) 📝 I Tracked 70K+ ChatGPT and AI Overview Responses to Mea...

Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile break down the biggest local SEO, Google, and AI search updates from the past week, including: 📝 Google Business Profile Verification: Submit a Business Photo (Ben Fisher) 📝 Claude Project for Improving Information Gain for SEO (Steve Toth) 📝 The new rules of AI search (Crystal Carter) 📝 Study: How Keywords in Business Names Currently Impact Google Local Pack Ran...

Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are here to unpack the latest local SEO news, updates, and takeaways, including: 📝 Wordfence Argus Finds Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability in Gravity Forms (Alex Thomas) 📝 The 2026 Local Discovery Index (SOCi) 📝 How to Grow Your Brand Authority for AI Search (GEO, AEO) (Crawling Mondays by Aleyda Solis) 📝 Practical guide to improving EEAT in you...

Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are back with the latest local SEO news, updates, and takeaways from the past week, including: 📝 “Tell Maps” is live! (Claudia Tomina) 📝 Google Business Profile Alert for Local SEOs & Agency Owners (Amy Toman) 📝 What 1.8 million Google Business Profiles tell us about local SEO success (Darren Shaw) 📝 The Best Persona Tool On the Web Is Now Live (Rand Fishkin)...

In this episode, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile share the latest local SEO news, updates, and insights from the past two weeks: 📝 Breaking news: View Counts on Google Posts (Muhammad Hussain) 📝 Hack to Get Activities on Your Google Business Profile (Claudia Tomina) 📝 Tactics for Building a Local Brand in the Age of AI Search — An Agency Panel (Near Media) 📝 How AI text watermarking works (Jame...

In this episode, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile share the most exciting local SEO news and insights from the past two weeks: 📝 Links back in GBP products populated via product editor (Claire Carlile) 📝 Whitespark Analyzed GBP Review Questions for 765 Businesses (Miriam Ellis) 📝 Yelp Licenses Its Review, Photo, and Request-a-Quote Data to ChatGPT ((Krystal Taing) 📝 You Need to Nail Your “Brand...

This week, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile break down the biggest local SEO stories, including: 📝 These SEO Strategies Drive 90% of Your AI Visibility (Cyrus Shepard) 📝 Low-Effort Leap in Local SEO: Target a 2nd Language on Your Site with a Plugin (Phil Rozek) 📝 How to Generate High Quality Leads Through Your Website (Exposure Ninja) 📝 Google’s LLM patent suggests a new goal for SEO: Teaching A...

This week, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are unpacking the local SEO stories you need to know, including: 📝 Claiming a Service Area Business (SAB) has changed (Vinay Toshniwal) Request ownership of a Business Profile 📝 Why Google Business Profile address changes can disrupt local rankings (Claudia Tomina on Search Engine Land) 📝 Who Owns Your Google Business Profile? The Complete Guide to Owne...

🔥 Whitespark Local Ranking Grids This week, Darren Shaw is joined by special guest Amy Toman to break down the local SEO stories you need to know, including: 📝 Hack to Move the Map Pin for an SAB (Mika Lepisto) 📝 Warning About GBP Review Management (Amy Toman) 📝 AI Search Visibility & Ranking Factors - For 1,100 Market Segments 📝 Massive Correlation Study of LLM Ranking Factors (Ben Wills...

This week, Claire Carlile and special guest Julian Hooks cover the latest local SEO news, including: 📝 The State of Local SEO in 2026 (Joy Hawkins, Sterling Sky) 📝 Why Your Google Reviews Disappear (Ex-Googlers Explain) (SterlingSky, Brad Wetherall) 📝 Where AI agents get stuck on your site (Kevin Indig) 📝 New Google Reviews Bug: You Have No Reviews Yet (Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable...

This week, Claire Carlile is joined by special guest Dayna Lucio to discuss the latest local SEO news and updates, including: 📝 See how content from social and video platforms performs on Google Search 📝 AI summaries of Tripadvisor hotel reviews downplay serious complaints, investigation finds (Robert Booth) 📝 Why TikTok deserves a place in your SEO strategy (Celeste Gonzalez) 📝 AI Traffic vs...

This week, Claire Carlile is joined by special guest Krystal Taing to break down the local SEO stories you need to know, including: 📝 June 2026 AI Search News (Caroline Green, Carolyn Wilborn) 📝 New Gemini Features for Small Businesses | Grow with Google 📝 AI's brain is getting bloated with AI content (Megan Morrone) 📝 How to safely implement high-impact technical SEO changes (Dayna Lucio) 📝...

🔥 Whitespark Local Ranking Grids 🔥 This week, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are unpacking the local SEO stories you need to know, including: 📝 Connect your Google Business Profile to Gemini 📝 The Review Gap: Finding Client Opportunities In Competitor Feedback (Celeste Gonzalez on the Search Engine Journal Blog) 📝 GBP Help pages have been revised (Hiroko Imai) 📝 Google is bringing back GBP M...

This week on The Whitespark Local Update, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile break down the latest local SEO news, including: 📝 Study: How Review Profiles Impact Brand AI Visibility (Trustpilot and Seer Interactive) 📝 This is the AI prompt you need to track and aren't (Wil Reynolds) 📝 The Click Is Now Optional. Here’s What Isn’t. (Amanda Natividad) 📝 Colorado Banning Lead Gen Companies from Sellin...

Local SEO keeps changing with the speed of light, but Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are here to help you keep up. This week, they cover: 📝 AI Search, Speak Your Customer's Language or Be Left Out of the Conversation (Michelle Ali) 📝 Connect Google Business Profile to Google Analytics (Google) 📝 How to Rank in Surrounding Cities or Towns (Miriam Ellis) 📝 Google’s Review Reply Rejection Filter...

Local search was busy last week. Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw break down what happened, why it matters, and what you should do about it. This week, they cover: 📝 Why B2B Is MORE Emotional Than B2C (Amanda Natividad and Talia Wolf) 📝 Why Do We Need Zero Click Marketing? (Rand Fishkin) 📝 AI Mode + AI Overviews directly in Search Console (Chris Long) 📝 Google Business Profile Video Verification...

We are back with another episode of the Whitespark Local Update, where our host Darren Shaw and special guest Celeste Gonzalez discuss: 📝 Google Already Knows Everything About You — And Their New AI Features Make It Worse (Near Media) 📝 Your Feed Is the Product of a Stealth Marketing Campaign (Lane Brown) 📝 Google Maps just got an AI facelift (Claudia Tomina) 📝 The new playbook for localized A...

Big local search news dropped last week, and Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are here to break down what changed and why it matters. This week, they cover: 📝 Google Launches AI-Powered Search Box (Near Media Newsletter) 📝 2026 Google I/O Keynote Bingo (Britney Muller) 📝 Google intelligence and what it means for local SEO (Claudia Tomina) 📝 The ROI of Reputation Connecting Reviews to Revenue, Ra...

Local search keeps changing, and Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are here to make sense of it. This week, they cover: 📝 How Google’s Personal Intelligence is Quietly Revolutionizing Your Search Results with Garrett Sussman (Near Media) 📝 AI Citation Ranking Factor Analysis (Cyrus Shepard) 📝 RIP AI Overview Tracking (Dana DiTomaso) 📝 Google is now pulling Reddit threads directly into Google Busi...

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back with a new episode of the Whitespark Local Update. Here’s what they cover in this one: 📝 17 Content Types to Survive Google’s Zero-Click Future (Cyrus Shepard) 📝 5 Data-Backed Features of Websites Winning Google in 2026 (Cyrus Shepard) 📝 Most pages are too long for AI agents to read (Myriam Jessier) 📝 Your GBP Photo Gallery just got Smarter (Google Small...