The Near Memo
Exploring the big stories for the week at the intersection of local business & marketing across the spectrum of search, social and commerce. With Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal & David Mihm.
Why "Position One" Doesn't Exist in Local Anymore (Brighton SEO Recap)
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Andrew Shotland (Local SEO Guide) and Mark Kabana (founder of Places Scout, now VP of Data Innovation at Yext) join Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal fresh off Brighton SEO San Diego for an open-agenda conversation: what the conference floor actually said about local's place in the industry, why a single search rank may already be a dead concept, and how permissioned, agentic browsing is quietly showing up inside everyday consumer AI tools.
Topics include: why AI vendors already outnumber local vendors on conference expo floors, a Near Media survey finding that...
Fragmented Discovery, Google's €460M DMA Fine, and Apple's Distribution Bet
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Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal break down four stories shaping local search and AI discovery. First, a preview of new consumer-journey research Near Media ran for Lastmile Retail (heading to Brighton SEO): search and AI dominate discovery, but human referral has barely moved in a decade — and AI usage collapses at the moment of purchase.
Then the EU's DMA decision: a €460M fine for Google search self-preferencing (part of a combined €890M penalty), a 60-day cease-and-desist, and the Commission's rejection of the "the local pack is just search" defense. Mike audits Google...
The Verification Loop: How People *Really* Find Local Businesses Now (SOCi's Damian Rollison)
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The path to a local purchase used to be a straight line. It isn't anymore. Damian Rollison, Senior Director of Market Insights at SOCi, joins Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal to unpack SOCi's third annual consumer study and the idea at its center: the verification loop. Consumers now bounce among search, social, AI, and review sites — corroborating a choice before they act — and this year AI posted the single biggest behavior jump the survey has ever recorded.
We get into the numbers that matter for local marketers: AI usage for local rese...
The Path of Enshittification: Apple Ads, Google's Toll Booth, and Meta's $18B Escape Hatch
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Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal go guest-free this week to connect three stories that are really one story. Apple has launched ads in Apple Maps — contextual, largely on-device, and with no way to turn them off — which quietly undercuts the "you're not the product" brand Apple spent years building. Google is expanding what it charges for: starting October 1, some missed Local Services Ads calls become billable leads, and LSAs have moved into Google's main ad organization as ad real estate keeps eating the results page.
Then there's Meta's roughly $18 billion youth-safety sett...
The Hidden Advantage: How Brand Awareness Decides the Click in Legal Search
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Greg Sterling walks Mike Blumenthal through original Near Media user research — the "Choosing a Lawyer" study of the Atlanta personal-injury market, first presented at the Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Summit in Nashville. Using a user-testing video, a 350-person survey, and head-to-head ad-creative testing, the episode shows how prior brand awareness quietly steers online behavior: which result gets the click, which firm gets the benefit of the doubt, and who ultimately gets hired.
The throughline: brand is a pre-existing advantage that works before anyone compares options. Google is still the default first st...
Tactics for Building a Local Brand in the Age of AI Search — An Agency Panel
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Four agency operators join Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal to close out the Near Memo brand-building series: Paula French (Search Influence), Joy Hawkins (Sterling Sky), Andrew Shotland (Local SEO Guide), and Matt McGee (SEO Savvy Agent). It's a tactics-first conversation about what "brand" means for a local business now that AI Overviews, LSAs, and ads have squeezed organic off the first screen.
The panel gets specific: a startup's AI visibility jumping ~400% in a week off two press mentions, why third-party mentions now outweigh review count in AI answers, local listings as...
AI Overviews, Brand Search & Local SEO: Cyrus Shepard on Earning the Click - from the archives
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We're on vacation this week, so we're re-running one of our favorite April conversations. It still speaks to our current series on brand in local, and a live panel on local digital brand strategy follows next week.
Cyrus Shepard (founder of Zyppy) joins David Mihm and Mike Blumenthal to unpack what the Google antitrust trial, the leaked patents, and the API leak revealed about how Google really ranks: user click data. They walk through the three signals that matter — clicks, long clicks, and the "last longest click" — why brand search keeps corr...
Legal Marketing in the AI Era: LSAs, Reviews, and Manufacturing Brand Demand
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Part 3 of the Near Memo brand-building series brings brand down to earth in professional services — specifically legal, where a client hires once in a lifetime, can't judge quality, and every ad on the screen looks identical. Gyi Tsakalakis, co-founder of AttorneySync, joins Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal to talk about what actually moves the needle for personal-injury and other high-stakes firms.
The throughline: you can't outspend a bad intake experience. Gyi makes the case for treating intake and even rejections as review-generation surfaces, signing prospects up before you qualify them, and ma...
Cyrus Shepard Interview: What "Local Brand" Actually Means to Google and AI
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Cyrus Shepard, founder of Zyppy, joins Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal for Part 2 of the Near Memo brand-building series — this time on the technical side: how Google and AI systems actually model a brand, and what a local business can do about it.
To Google, a brand isn't a feeling. It's an entity — an entry in a database, connected to your website, your Business Profile, and you. Cyrus walks through what strengthens those connections, why branded search volume is still the single best lever in SEO, and why the decade-old fundamentals came...
The 3-Step Trust Equation: How to Build a Local Brand That Customers (& AI) Trust
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What separates a commodity local provider from a business that easily commands premium pricing? In this kickoff to our four-part brand series, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal are joined by marketing pioneer John Jantsch.
John details how small businesses can harness real customer language using clinet interviews, reviews and LLMs to establish distinctiveness, why top-down strategic leadership is required to effectively implement AI, and how to navigate the emerging threat of "agentic flattening" as AI agents and structured protocols begin to alter direct website interactions. Streamline your marketing operations from strategy to f...
Ep. 264: Web Authenticity & The Agentic Future of the SMB Website with Raj Singh
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Are traditional websites dying, or are they just changing shapes? Hosts Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal catch up with serial entrepreneur and Mozilla VP of Product Raj Singh to discuss how AI search friction is changing the local web. Learn why small businesses must lean into "trust artifacts," how APIs and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) will surface local businesses to AI agents, and why human-in-the-loop authenticity is your best defense against algorithmic spam.
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Beyond the Star Rating: Extracting Strategic Content Insights from Customer Feedback
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Local SEO strategy often gets stuck playing a quantitative numbers game with review counts and velocity benchmarks. But what happens when you treat the collective text of your market's customer reviews as an ongoing, free focus group? This week, Celeste Gonzalez joins us to show how tools like Apify and Natural Language Processing (NLP) allow local agencies to scrape hidden market trends from Reddit, TikTok, and competitor Google Maps profiles. We break down exactly how to extract actionable copywriting blueprints from customer pain points, avoid confirmation biases, and keep your business answers consistent f...
Ep. 262: Regulating the Digital Wild West: Inside the FTC’s Battle Against Review Fraud and AI Deception with Michael Atleson
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What happens when federal regulators take on fake reviews and predatory AI applications? This week on NearMemo, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal host Michael Atleson, former Senior Attorney at the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices (now with DLA Piper). Michael walks us through the internal strategy behind the landmark Consumer Review Rule, the nuances of investigating multi-million dollar local business listing fraud, and how lawyers are using novel product liability theories to bypass Section 230 immunity. We also dive into the political shifts impacting AI enforcement, state-level legislation targeting companion bots, and the fut...
Google Maps' AI Shift: Why Brand Building, Reviews & Social Presence Are the New Local SEO
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Are your local search frameworks ready for a probabilistic, AI-driven Map interface? This week, Greg, Mike, and local search practitioner Craig Burton map out the massive influx of automated algorithmic categorization structures rolling across Google Maps globally. From "Trending This Week" hooks to deep "Curated with Gemini" vertical subcategories, Google is testing dynamic, phone-facing carousels that ignore standard business profile naming and keyword densities. The team discusses the mechanics of how Google tracks localized user interactions, reviews, citations, and even point-of-sale data to create these lists, establishing a new competitive framework called "Evidence...
Goodbye Traffic, Hello Sales: The New Playbook for Local SEO Visibility
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How do you build brand permanence in a local market when web attribution metrics are fading? This week, we dive into Part 2 of our post-Google I/O masterclass with Cindy Krum, Krystal Taing, and Greg Gifford. The panel shifts completely from macro trends to hands-on execution strategy. We explore why search traffic is splitting across social apps and niche forums, how businesses can produce narrative-driven video assets that anchor themselves in AI overviews, and the structural limitations of using automated AI tools to write generic content. Plus, discover an exceptional, compliant framework for o...
What Does I/O Mean for Marketers with Cindy Krum, Gregg Gifford & Krystal Tang - Part 1
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The rules of user discovery are undergoing a massive rewrite. This week, the Near Media roundtable features top search minds Cindy Krum, Krystal Taing, and Greg Gifford to analyze the long-term strategic impacts of Google I/O and Google Marketing Live. The panel maps out exactly how Google plans to transform its core search application into a fully transaction-based ecosystem that handles everything from discovering local venues to completing checkouts natively inside the search framework.
Get an inside look at the technical mechanics behind Google’s AI infrastructure, the roll-out of...
From Keyword Rankings to Brand Reverence: The New Local AI SEO Blueprint
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In this Duda webinar, Darren Shaw and Mike Blumenthal explore the paradigm shift occurring in local search as Google increasingly incorporates generative AI into Google Business Profiles and Google Maps. Through new features like "Know Before You Go" and the conversational "Ask Maps," local discovery is transitioning from a deterministic ranking model to a highly personalized, context-aware ecosystem. Blumenthal demonstrates how to leverage Ask Maps for deep competitive analysis to pinpoint market weaknesses and operational gaps. The speakers emphasize that while traditional SEO remains foundational "table stakes," long-term visibility in the AI era r...
Google Already Knows Everything About You — And Their New AI Features Make It Worse
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Google just revealed the future of Search at Google I/O and Google Marketing Live — and it’s far more personal, predictive, and invasive than most people realize.
In this episode of Near Memo, Mike Blumenthal and Greg Sterling break down:
A massive fake Google Business Profile fraud case involving 15,000 fake listings and $79 million in alleged fraudHow Google already infers your income, politics, preferences, and buying habits — even WITHOUT opting into “Personal Intelligence”The rise of AI-native advertising formatsWhy AI Mode may fundamentally reshape search, local discovery, Google Maps, and online com...The Death of Keywords: How Google’s Personal Intelligence is defining the future of Local Search
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In Part 2 of Near Media’s conversation with Garrett Sussman, the discussion shifts from AI personalization theory to the real-world impact on local search, SEO, reviews, attribution, and marketing strategy.
Garrett joins Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal to explore how Google’s growing use of behavioral data, Gmail, Calendar, Maps, reviews, and AI Mode could fundamentally reshape local discovery.
The group discusses:
AI-driven local recommendationsWhy direct mail showed up in AI ModeThe future of Google Business ProfilesHow marketers should rethink SEO measurementPersona-based AI testingReviews and reputation in AI sear...How Google’s Personal Intelligence is Quietly Revolutionizing Your Search Results
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Is Google getting too personal? In this episode of the Near Memo, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal are joined by Garrett Sussman (iPullRank) to discuss his provocative 12-month study on AI personalization. We dive deep into how Google’s "AI Mode" uses your Gmail, Photos, and Calendar to tailor results—and why "unopened emails" might be influencing what you see next.
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Google Ask Maps Deep Dive: The Future of Local SEO & AI Search
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Join our celebrity local SEO panel—Claudia Tomina, Adam Dorfman, and Darren "The Canadian" Shaw—as they explore "Ask Maps," Google’s AI-powered conversational interface for local search. We demo the new desktop UI, discuss how hyper-personalization is changing user behavior, and reveal why "content freshness" is now the most critical strategy for local businesses to stay relevant in an AI-driven world.
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Google Ask Maps Deep Dive: The Future of Local SEO & AI Search
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Join our celebrity local SEO panel—Claudia Tomina, Adam Dorfman, and Darren "The Canadian" Shaw—as they explore "Ask Maps," Google’s AI-powered conversational interface for local search. We demo the new desktop UI, discuss how hyper-personalization is changing user behavior, and reveal why "content freshness" is now the most critical strategy for local businesses to stay relevant in an AI-driven world.
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Review Fraud, FTC Fines, and Yelp’s Legal Strike
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Greg and Mike discuss the shifting landscape of local search. From the FTC’s latest crackdown on incentivized reviews to Yelp’s attempt to fast-forward their antitrust case against Google using recent federal rulings. We also explore the expansion of LSAs and the transition from the "Local Pack" to AI-driven "Ask Maps."
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Google Reviews Crackdown, Meta vs Google, and the AI Search Shift (What Marketers Are Missing)
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Google just changed the rules on reviews—and businesses may already be getting penalized. Meanwhile, Meta is projected to overtake Google in ad revenue, despite ongoing legal battles and ethical concerns.
In this episode, Mike Blumenthal and Greg Sterling break down:
• Google’s new review enforcement signals
• Why marketers are frustrated with rising ad costs and unclear ROI
• The surprising shift toward AI-driven search (ChatGPT, Ask Maps)
• Who actually wins the AI race—and why it may not be who you think
<...Google Lied About Click Data — Here’s What Actually Drives Rankings in 2026
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This episode explores how Google actually uses click data (despite years of denial) and how that reality intersects with the rise of AI Overviews. Cyrus Shepherd connects the dots between antitrust trial revelations, API leaks, and patents, showing that click behavior—especially “last longest click”—is a core ranking signal.
The discussion then shifts to how AI Overviews are reshaping search:
Reducing traditional clicksForcing Google to predict user behavior with less dataIncreasing the importance of brand, task completion, and enga...AI, Reviews & Intent Pages: What Actually Drives Multi-Location SEO Now (Part 2)
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In Part 2, Steve Wiideman joins Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal to cut through the AI hype and explain what’s actually working in multi-location SEO today.
Despite growing attention on AI tools and “agentic commerce,” the real drivers of visibility are still foundational: intent-driven content, strong review signals, and brand awareness.
They also explore how zero-click search is changing attribution, why websites are becoming data sources for AI, and what local search will look like in the next 3–5 years.
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Multi-Location SEO: What Actually Works (And What Doesn’t) Part 1
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What does it really take to scale SEO across hundreds (or thousands) of locations?
In this episode of the Near Memo, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal are joined by Steve Wiideman to unpack the operational, strategic, and technical realities of multi-location SEO.
They explore testing frameworks, content strategies, franchise challenges, reviews, imagery, and the evolving nature of search behavior.
If you manage local SEO at scale, this is a must-listen.
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State of Google Business Profile 2026: Impressions Are Down 54%—But Actions Aren’t
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Google Business Profile impressions are dropping fast—but conversions aren’t.
In this Near Memo episode, Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal, and Adam Dorfman unpack BirdEye’s latest data and explore what’s really changing in local search.
From AI Overviews and LLM-driven discovery to Google’s new Ask Maps interface, they examine how search behavior is shifting—and why Google still controls the final decision point.
They also dig into:
Category vs brand search behaviorIndustry-level engagement differencesThe evolving role of reviews in AI-driven resultsApple Maps as a quiet chal...From the Archives: Local Search Ranking Factors — Darren Shaw on Reviews, AI Search & What Drives Local Rank
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In this archive episode of the Near Memo podcast, Darren Shaw of Whitespark joins Mike Blumenthal, Greg Sterling, and David Mihm to discuss the influential Local Search Ranking Factors study.
The panel breaks down how the survey works, what has changed in local search, and how the rise of AI interfaces like ChatGPT and Gemini could reshape how businesses are discovered online.
They explore:
Why review volume and recency drive rankingsHow behavioral signals may outweigh traditional SEO factors<...How should agencies build a business around Google Local Service Ads (LSAs)?
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In this episode of the Near Memo podcast, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal host a panel discussion with Eric Levine (Leadwise HQ, former Google LSA team), Claudia Tomina (Reputation Arm), Matt Casady (Sterling Sky), and Crystal Horton (Google Business Profile Platinum Product Expert).
Together the panel explores how agencies are actually managing LSAs for clients today.
Topics include:
• The real ranking factors behind Local Service Ads
• Whether LSAs are still a DIY product or require agen...
AI, Strong-Arm Tactics & a Shifting Review Landscape Are Reshaping Local Search
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Google AI & Click Economics
Google is replacing structured GBP data with AI-generated summaries, nudging users into AI Mode, and expanding monetization pathways. Aleyda Solis’ study and Near Media research show ads — especially LSAs — are siphoning clicks.
Data Moats & Scraping Crackdowns
Google restricts scraping, disrupting SerpAPI. The move reinforces Google’s data advantage against ChatGPT and Perplexity while signaling an increasingly closed ecosystem.
Reviews, Inflation & Consumer Backlash (22:00–36:00)
Yelp’s Trust Report and BrightLocal’s 2026 study show persistent fraud, rising consumer...
AI Visibility vs Google Ranking: Rand Fishkin & the Future of Search, Zero Click & Brand Measurement
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In this episode of Near Memo, Rand Fishkin joins Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal, and David Mihm to unpack the future of AI search, brand visibility, and digital measurement.
Is AI rank tracking possible? Are zero-click journeys killing websites? And how should local businesses measure marketing performance in a world where attribution is breaking down?
Rand shares new research on AI brand visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI, discusses why performance marketing metrics are eroding, and explains where brands should actually invest their energy in 2026.
This is...
The Truth About Google Local Service Ads: Rankings, Reviews & Photo Strategy
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Google Local Service Ads have become one of the most powerful placements in local search — especially in competitive verticals like personal injury law.
But what actually drives ranking and performance?
In this episode, we examine the real mechanics behind LSAs: review cadence, responsiveness, bidding structure, and the psychology of visual presentation. We explore how headshots and photo sequencing influence trust, why logos don’t convert, and how review manipulation creates competitive distortion.
LSAs reward operational excellence more than aggressive spending — and understanding the role of visual trust may be...
Inside Google Local Services Ads: Ranking Signals, Lead Costs, and Why LSAs Beat the Local Pack (w/ Eric Levine)
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Local Services Ads have become the “top-of-the-page” battleground for high-value local categories—especially professional services. In this episode, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal talk with former LSA team member Eric Levine about how LSAs evolved, what really influences rank, and how Google’s lead marketplace mechanics shape outcomes.
We break down “request multiple options,” lead billing, the big ranking signals (reviews, responsiveness, radius/service area), why LSAs often win user attention over the local pack, and how photos should be chosen and structured to match user decision-making.
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AI Isn’t Replacing Local Search — But It’s Rewiring How People Choose with Crystal Carter
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AI isn’t killing search — it’s reshaping how people discover, evaluate, and choose businesses.
In this in terview with Crystal Carter of Wix, we unpack how large language models, AI assistants, and emerging “agent” experiences are changing consumer behavior, local search, and brand visibility. From ChatGPT and Google’s AI-driven results to personalization, intent modeling, and task completion, we explore what actually changes — and what doesn’t.
We also dig into:
• Why AI acts more like a complement to search than a replacement
• How “choice” and “consideration” evolve in A...
Inside Google Local Rankings and the Review Purge
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Claudia Tomina joins Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal to unpack what the Google API leak reveals about local rankings, why reviews are being removed at scale, and how AI Overviews, Gemini, and agentic shopping are pushing transactions into Google’s AI interfaces. A must-listen for anyone managing a Google Business Profile in 2026.
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AI Is Breaking Local Search—But Google Still Decides Who Gets Chosen - Interview with Gyi Tsakalakis Part 2
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AI tools are changing how consumers discover local businesses, but Google remains the system of record for trust, reviews, directions, and contact. This conversation explores how AI reduces cognitive load, concentrates visibility, and amplifies brand demand—forcing local marketers to rethink SEO beyond rankings.
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Why Local SEO Is Breaking for Law Firms (And What Actually Works Now)
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Local SEO, reviews, and Google LSAs are no longer working the way law firms expect. In this episode of Near Memo, Gyi Tsakalakis (AttorneySync) joins Mike Blumenthal and Greg Sterling to explain why rankings and traffic are misleading, how LSAs reshape legal demand, why review cheating is rampant, and how brand trust has become the real competitive moat.
If you’re relying on Google visibility alone to grow a law firm, this conversation is a wake-up call.
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Google’s AI Mode Is Rewriting Local Search — What Businesses Must Do for 2026 P#2
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Google’s AI Mode and ChatGPT search are reshaping local discovery. This deep dive interview with Michel van Luijtelaar of GMBapi explains what’s changing, how users behave inside AI results, and what local businesses must do now to stay visible and trusted.
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Google’s Review Algorithms Are Tightening — Here’s What the Data Shows
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In this episode of The Near Memo, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal talk with Michel of GMB API about what new data reveals regarding review removals, fraud detection, incentivized reviews, and regional legal differences across Europe and the U.S.
The conversation explores why reviews are increasingly central to AI-driven search experiences, how enforcement tools can unintentionally harm small businesses, and what this all means for trust, visibility, and competition in local search.
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