The Whitespark Local Update

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 Rank and AI Search (Miriam Ellis) 📝 Has excessive use of AI slop knocked us back to an “anti-digital” age? (iPullRank newsletter, Carly Stoenner) Sign up here 📝 We Are Living in a ‘ChatGPT Flyer Pandemic’ (Jason Koebler) 📝 Side of slop? Bizarre AI food images jump from online to IRL menus (NBC News) 📝 Google is now asking about edits BEFORE they go live (Claudia Tomina)

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 your content (Steve Toth) 📝 We tracked 13,184 AI citations across 4 LLMs. Here’s what we learned… (Andy Crestodina, Bill Widmer) 📝 What SEOs Get Wrong About AI Search (Andy Crestodina)

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) 📝 EP 270 - The Hidden Advantage: How Brand Awareness Decides the Click in Legal Search (Near Media, Mike Blumenthal) 📝 THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO MARKETING PERSONAS (iPullRank)

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 (James Padolsey) 📝 Why AI Search Won’t Rank This Website (Live Audit) (SterlingSky) 📝 Google Local Service Ads Now Pull Content Straight From Your Website (Ishan Gupta) 📝 Direct Traffic in GA4: What It Really Measures (and 10 Ways to Increase It) (Andy Crestodina)

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 Facts” (Cyrus Shepard) 📝 New GBP Feature: Report Owner Response (Vinay Toshniwal, Jacek N. Kozio) 📝 1 5 Tips for Winning in LLMs (Suganthan Mohanadasan) Follow us on LinkedIn ❤️ Darren Shaw: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenshawwhitespark/ Claire Carlile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairecarlile/

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 AI who you are (Rich Sanger) 📝 Why you need to "TikTokify" your Google Ads (Talia Wolf and Jyll Saskin Gales) 📝 I made my nail lady open her Google Ads account before I left the chair (Ameet Khabra)

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 Ownership, Security, Transfers & Recovery (Ben Fisher) 📝 AI Overview 6-pack (Joy Hawkins) 📝 AI Is Killing Content: The Only Way to Win (Ross Simmonds, SterlingSky) 📝 Reddit Keyword Research with Claude: 3 Levels From Beginner to Pro (Usman Akram)

🔥 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) 📝 Google Review Not Posted (Amy Toman) 📝 What Local Brand Actually Means to Google and AI (Near Media Podcast with Cyrus Shepard) 📝 Two Types of GBP Blocks (Amy Toman): article not yet published. 🔥 Whitespark Local Platform

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) 📝 Build your own AI search visibility tracker for under $100/month (Julian Hooks) 📝 AI Prioritization Framework for SEOs (Elizabeth Linder)

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 AI Citations: What Clicks and Cited Pages Show About the AI Search Journey (Aleyda Solis) 📝 Building a brand worth finding: Signals that fuel discovery (Beth Nunnington) 📝 AI Workflows for Local SEO (Amanda Jordan)

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) 📝 Google AI Overviews Study Finds Lost Clicks Weren’t Lower Quality (Matt G. Southern) 📝 AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools

🔥 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 Messaging - with an AI chatbot for your business (Darren Shaw)

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 Selling Legal Leads to Law Firms (Jason Hennessey) 📝 Apple introduces Siri AI (Apple Newsroom) 📝 Internal Data Mining and Strategic Review Acquisition (Krystal Taing, Near Media) 📝 Social Signals as a Ranking Factor (Michael B. Snow, SOCi)

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 (Michel van Luijtelaar) 📝 Chunking Your Content for AI? 1956 Called. They Want Their Method Back (Dorron Shapow) 📝 Connect your Google Business Profile to Gemini (Mike G. and Google)

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 Tutorial (Brad Wetherall) 📝 How Schema Markup Influences Search and AI (Jake Hundley) 📝 The First Edition of The Signal: The AI stuff marketers can't ignore (Wil Reynolds and Alisa Scharf) 📝 Schema, LLMs and the Low Bar for “Evidence” in GEO (Mark Williams-Cook)

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 AI search optimization (Darren Shaw) 📝 Google Ask Maps: How to optimize for visibility (Rich Sanger) 📝 Google Offer Posts are getting more prominence (Michael B. Snow)

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, Rankings, and Retention (Brad Wetherall, GatherUp) 📝 Photo View Counts on Google Business Profiles are Back (Muhammad Hussain) 📝 Improving AI Visibility for Local Businesses Through Sponsorships (Ellen Sartin) 📝 Google’s Guidance on AI Search is Naive and Self-Serving (Mike King)

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 Business Profiles (Darren Shaw) 📝 Google is now pulling social media posts directly into Google Business Profiles (Darren Shaw) 📝 Google Suspended This Profile: Their Calls Stopped Overnight (Sterling Sk) 📝 It Works Until It Doesn't: AI Content Strategies That Backfire (Lily Ray)

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 Business Bulletin) 📝 Google Ask Maps Deep Dive: Ask Maps Is The Future of Local SEO Panel Discussion (NearMedia) 📝 Google Offer & Event Post highlights appear in search results for the Leisure Industry (Michael B. Snow) 📝 Whitespark’s Guide to Google’s AI Mode for Local Businesses (Miriam Ellis)

On this episode of the Whitespark Local Update, Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw bring you a fresh roundup of last week’s most important local SEO updates. They cover: 📝 Google Ask Maps is moving from listings to recommendations (Rich Sanger) 📝 ‘Restaurants’ and ‘coffee and dessert’ now have local service ads (Eric Levine) 📝 Schema Markup for Internal Knowledge Graphs to Support Topic Entity Strategy in AI Search (Aimee Jurenka) 📝 Google Maps Blocked 292 Million Reviews & Removed 13 Million Fake Profiles (Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz) 📝 The ghost citation problem (Kevin Indig via his newsletter Growth Memo) 📝 Commodity and Non-Commodity Content (Mark Williams-Cook) 📝 Most SEOs Are Preparing for Yesterday's Internet (Ross Simmonds)