Duck Duck Google is a new game being played that could impact millions of business owners and online marketers around the world.  The game is a great enhancement to Google Maps and looks like fun for consumers searching for information about specific geographies.  It also looks like fun for local small business owners hoping to get found by these consumers.

Here’s how it works.  People searching Google are given a map with a set of results.  The results are push pins on a map. The push pins are correlated to a set of local business listings.  Nowadays, each local business has a full page associated with it’s listing.  When claimed this page is capable of hosting rich and detailed information about that business.  These pages will also “suck in” relevant business information, such as reviews, from different places all over the web.

It’s cool.  But here’s the problem — despite public promises from Google that it would not index these pages — it seems the game is rigged as it relates to natural search results.  In other words, these maps pages — which are controlled by Google — are indeed getting indexed and are surfacing on page one of Google’s natural results.

NOTE:  Danny Sullivan thinks this might be a simple mistake caused by Google product managers not understanding the difference between between a robots.txt block and a meta robots block.

Let’s hope he’s right.  If he’s not — online marketers everywhere will be forced to play a game that’s not quite fair.

In Google’s case they are increasingly making assumptions and guessing the person’s intent by returning a mix of search results that MIGHT actually match.

For example, if you ask Google about “Pizza” — are you interested in recipes?  Nutritional info?  Or a listing of local delivery shops?

Without knowing your true intent — Google will guess and give you back a hodge-podge of results.  If Google guesses wrong — it’s no big deal.  You’ll probably refine your search query — and give Google a second (3rd, 4th, 5th) chance to return a better set of results that hopefully satisfies your needs.

Although Google’s guessing game is no big deal to the consumer — it’s a HUGE deal to other people — namely internet yellow pages and online directory sites.  You see now nowadays people searching for pizza will get a list of local delivery shops whether you wanted that info or not.  It’s called the Google 10 pak and it’s the list of businesses plotted on a map with address and contact details.  In other words — it’s the kind of information you used to get from the yellow pages or an online directory.  Indeed Google used to prominently surface these directory sites in their search results.  Nowadays the directory sites still get surfaced on Google — but it’s below the 10 pak — and possibly on page 2.

To see the true impact  of this dynamic, check out this great post by Chris Silver Smith.  In summary, yellow pages and directory sites are being hurt by Google’s guessing-game because they are getting less traffic referrals.

• Bad news = overall revenues are trending down due to declines in the print yellow pages (PYP)
• Good news = online revenues are trending up due to gains in the internet yellow pges (IYP)
• Bad news = IYP advertisers generate substantially less revenue than PYP advertisers

In summary, although yellow pages publishers are indeed making strides transitioning their advertisers onto the web, their legacy-driven and directory-centric approach is seriously flawed and has led to a situation where many of them are simply “trading analog dollars for digital dimes”.

If directory publishers want to succeed into the future they must adopt a new approach that innovates beyond traditional directory-centric thinking.  This new approach must fully embrace the open and social web as the platform for delivering next generation advertising and content solutions.

For starters, publishers must acknowledge that the web itself is the one true directory.  Upon this playing field there are brokers of information (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Kosmix) and enablers of content (Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter).  There are also hybrid players attempting to do both (CitySearch, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Service Magic).

While it’s difficult to compete with Google in the brokerage business, there are plenty of opportunities to compete and win on the content creation side of the market.  There are also plenty of opportunities to compete and win as a hybrid player, provided that you find ways to create differentiated content and surface it openly in co-existence with Google and all of the other information brokers.

The web is the open directory.  It’s got very capable search tools on top of it.  However, the one thing it still lacks is quality content, especially in the context of 15 million small businesses.

Let me say it again.  Quality local content.  It’s the one thing the web still lacks.  And it’s the one thing that even Google can’t get for itself.  It’s also the one area where I believe yellow pages publishers have an enormous opportunity to compete and win.

Equipped with a next generation lead gen platform, a yellow pages sales force could sell simple tools and services to enable millions of small businesses to create quality online content for purposes of getting found in search, conversing with customers, and generating much needed sales leads.

I’d welcome the opportunity to show you the future.

If you’d like to see it, please send me email at matt.howard@smblive.com.

Therefore, with regard to Google’s announcement that it is eliminating newspaper ads from it’s popular ad words product, i’d like you to imagine the following:

• The world’s advertisers are watching a real life game of Survivor
• The contestants are different types of media (Web PPC, TV, Radio, Newspaper, Outdoor, Mobile PPC, etc.)
• The contestants goal is to please the advertisers and stay on the island
• The island is slowly shrinking as fewer dollars are being spent by advertisers
• The name of the island is Adwordia
• The host of the show is Mr. Google (not Mr. Probst)
• The host has all the votes and unilaterally decides who stays and who goes

Unfortunately, for the newspaper industry, Mr. Google grew tired of selling remnants and splitting paltry fees.  Therefore, he decided the newspapers had to leave Adwordia.

Left to their own devices newspapers still sell $40 billion worth of advertising per year.  So, even though they have been booted off the Google island, you can still talk to their sales reps and buy their ads — at least for now.

Of course, if you happen to be a small business, then I would suggest that the key to your marketing future has nothing to do with buying expensive ads — not from newspapers or anyone else.  Instead, your future depends on your ability to get found for free in natural search.  To this end, you should seek simple to use tools that can help you create interesting and engaging content that is highly specific (topically and geographically) to the products and services you provide.

First, I received a tweet this morning from @TheKelseyGroup with a link to a case study about a local search portal called Weblocal.ca that has managed to generate large amounts of traffic after only a few months of being in market.  The company is actually a partnership between a software company called YellowBot and a Canadian print media company called Transcontinental with a collection of newspaper and magazine assets.  The portal itself is simple and clean.  Content is spotlighted for videos, pictures, users, and reviews.  Plus there is a tag cloud for popular topics and for popular places.

If you’re interested in local search, there is a lot to think about for sure.  However, in my opinion, the most intriguing part of the story is the 1 million UVs after just 60 days.  2.5% of Canada’s population visited the site in December 2008.  Transcon is pushing hard to promote the site through their 400 person sales channel and traditional media assets and it’ll be interesting to see how far they can go when taking on the leaders such as YPG and Canpages.

Second, in a sign that VC is not dead yet — or perhaps a sign that local search and generating inbound leads for SMBs remains a huge opportunity – Yodel announced that it closed a $10 million sercies C round.

I’ve said it before.  I’ll say it again.  In a down economy like this, SMBs are aggressively on the hunt for inbound leads.  Those that are positioned to help generate inbound sales leads for SMBs have an excellent opportunity for growth in the next few years.

It's a solid list — but they completely missed the trend toward social media, conversational marketing, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) profiles by SMBs.

Here is a quick summary:

1. Reputation Management will aggregate online conversations into a single, convenient display.
2. Home and trade service businesses with Web sites will double in two years.
3. Search spending from SMBs will grow rapidly.  E-mail and direct mail will remain popular.
4. SMB use of call tracking lines will grow from 3% to 15% within two years.
5. YPs (last to the party again) will build or buy a voice search solution.
6. 2009 is the year of automatic bundling of advertising into mobile.
7. Truly local content will appear in search results and business detail pages.
8. Empty profile pages will become less problematic.
9. Video will continue to explode as a form of marketing for SMBs.
10. Microsoft will end up with Yahoo.

Google has had a long standing interest in owning their own pipes — but they have always been huge supporters of equal network access for all content providers.  However, in recent years the massive growth in Internet traffic, driven mainly by online video, is causing content providers to look for preferential treatment and quality of service solutions from network providers.

Much to the chagrin of the FCC and advocates of net nuetrality — cash strapped carriers are all to eager to engage the discussion.  The simple fact is that they need new sources of revenue to subsidize the massive costs of never ending network upgrades.

The argument is that ifcompanies like Google succeed in negotiating preferential treatment, the Internet could become a "pay for play" platform where wealthy companies would get faster and easier access to the Web than the rest of us.

It's an interesting and complicated issue.  Who knows where it all ends up?

They spoke together 2 weeks ago on a panel at the Kelsey ILM:08 Conference.  It was definitely informative and entertaining.  And while their style and approach was quite different – their message was definitely similar.  Specifically, both of them agree that the key to making making money via a local home services marketplace is to build a huge foundation of credible consumer reviews.

ServiceMagic drives leads from consumers who are interested in connecting with service providers defined by great reviews.  Their site has more than 500,000 certified reviews covering 50,000 pre-screened businesses.  This is a solid foundation that attracts 4 million UVs per month which in turn generates $120 million per year in revenue from businesses willing to pay an average of $25 per lead.

In Angie’s case, they have more than 750,000 members paying an average of $5 per month.  This army has already written 450,000 reports on local businesses — and is currently generating 40,000 new reports per month.

Regardless of who said it (Rodney or Angie) the bottom line is that consumer reviews definitely attract other consumers – which creates opportunity to monetize.

For years, Google's incredible financial results have been driven by the simple fact that millions of consumers are increasingly moving to the web to "search, find, try, and buy" stuff — and 70% of the time they use Google.

It is total domination in terms of market share — and Google's direct
connection to the consumer, at precisely the right time, has afforded
them a huge contextual advantage over traditional media.

But the current economic environment is incredibly difficult — and even they are not immune.

According to the WSJ article:

The result is likely to be a sharp slowing in Google's growth rate — and slowing from 19% to 11% is a great problem if you're Google.