• Search Engine Land, Tuesday, October 7, 2008 2:18 PM

Greg Sterling posts a Q&A from SMX East in which Eric Stein answered attendees' direct questions about Google's Local Business Center (LBC) and map listings. Of particular interest was whether the analytics for local queries would improve, as Webmasters see clicks from OneBox listings or Google Maps lumped in with the "ordinary" organic traffic. Google's stance came through loud and clear -- both times the question was asked. "Local Universal results are organic results and there is no plan to separate them," Stein said.

Attendees also asked which data sources were the most authoritative for local business listings -- be it their own submissions, third-party data feeds, user reviews, or other sources -- and Stein said the business owners' own verified data always ranked first. "A business owner's verified listing trumps all other sources in terms of fields displayed," he said. "The least authoritative is a single reference on an unverified web page. Everything else is in between those two ends of the spectrum."

Stein also answered questions about Google's efforts to fight local and map spam, the LBC's seeming affinity for 800-numbers over local numbers, as well as queries from business owners outside the U.S.

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