Google Place Search Emphasizes Local SEO - Mediapost.com

Google began rolling out Place Search to combine local and organic listings on Google.com when searchers look for information around location. It aggregates results based on places, so searchers can compare information, but there are a few things SEO experts will want to play close attention to when optimizing Web sites for local search.

When Google's search engine believes the searcher wants information about a location, it returns local businesses high in the search engine results page. The new results in Place Search supports longer descriptions and reviews. Scroll down the page and the map follows along in the browser window.

Google Place Search will lead to more SEO work for companies that focus on small business optimization. Andrew Shotland, founder of Local SEO Guide, says the tool favors small businesses in Google's search results. "It intensifies the competition for local rankings," he says. "Previously, if you couldn't rank in Google's Seven Pack, the local set of results when they detect a relevant local query, you could always rank in the Web results shown around the map. If you weren't good at maps SEO you would be at Web SEO and get by."

The new change allows map listings to dominate the page and pushes non-local organic listings down or off the page. Businesses that ranked well in organic search results and had a map listing will now see the two merge. That merge will reduce the number of Web results on the page by one, explains Shotland. He also says that means Web sites that don't have a physical location in the city get pushed off the page.

Sites that have customer reviews have an exaggerated prominence in the search results, Shotland says.

David Harry, community manager at the SEO Training Dojo, says the ability to rank high in the search engine results pages for local search will require SEO professionals to consider domain extensions like .com .ca .co.uk; and information on the site that might appear on the contact page and in the footer. He says it is make sure it's accurate for each location if the business has more than one. He suggests updating local directories and make sure the business is listed on Web sites such as local directories and Google Maps.

For the better part of a year, Google has been asking local companies from restaurants to lawyer offices to "claim their business" listing by adding information about their Web site, telephone number and local address. IT generates a listing for the location in Google Maps, allowing searchers to find the business, get information and leave a review.

The tool will compete for space with listings on Yelp, Citysearch and other local directories. And now with Marissa Mayer behind the helm supporting local as the vice president of geographic and local services at Google, we will likely see much more innovation focused on local in the near future.

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Is China a supercomputer threat? (Q&A) - CNET

Jack Dongarra, a professor at University of Tennessee's department of electrical engineering. China's supercomputer is a 'wake-up call.'

(Credit: University of Tennessee)

With China expected to officially take the supercomputer performance crown next month, I asked an expert about the state of supercomputing in the U.S. and whether China poses a long-term threat to the United States' current preeminence in supercomputing.

Nvidia announced yesterday that its chips are powering the "Tianhe-1A" Chinese supercomputer that achieved 2.507 petaflops, beating a U.S.-based system that is currently ranked No. 1 on the June Top500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The Chinese system is a unique hybrid design that uses approximately 7,000 Nvidia graphics chips along with 14,000 Intel Xeon CPUs. The graphics chips are what give the system the extra oomph to catapult it into the top supercomputer spot.

I spoke with Jack Dongarra, university distinguished professor at University of Tennessee's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and part of a group from the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, and Georgia Tech that recently purchased a hybrid system. It is important to note that Oak Ridge houses the supercomputer, dubbed "Jaguar," cited above that is currently ranked No. 1 in the world based on the Top500 June list: it is not a hybrid system.

Q: Does Oak Ridge have anything analogous to the Chinese hybrid system?
Dongarra: Oak Ridge has a small version of a machine that is hybrid in nature. So, this is an acquisition that just took place...out of a grant from the National Science Foundation. It involved Oak Ridge National Labs, University of Tennessee, and Georgia Tech. But it's much, much smaller than the Chinese system. The machine is in place and testing is being carried out at Oak Ridge. A node has two Intel Westmere chips and three Nvidia Fermi boards. There are 120 nodes in the system.

What makes the Chinese supercomputer so fast?
Dongarra: The Chinese designed their own interconnect. It's not commodity. It's based on chips, based on a router, based on a switch that they produce.

Is that in essence the secret sauce?
Dongarra: It's similar to Cray. Cray's contribution, besides the integration and software, is the interconnect network. They have a very fast interconnect that makes that machine perform very well. Though [the Chinese] project is based on U.S. processors, it uses a Chinese interconnect. That's the interesting part. They've put something together that is roughly twice the bandwidth of an InfiniBand interconnect [which is used widely in the U.S.]

Will the Chinese system in fact take the No. 1 spot on the Top500 list in November?
Dongarra: Yes. I saw the machine. I saw the output. It's the real thing.

Why doesn't Oak Ridge do what the Chinese are doing?
Dongarra: Oak Ridge doesn't have the ability or technology to develop an interconnect or a router. We don't make computers. We buy computers and use them. It's not within our scope or mission to be in the computer design business.

What's your advice?
Dongarra: You have to remember that you have to not only invest in the hardware. It's like a race car. In order to run the race car, you need a driver. You need to effectively use the machine. And we need to invest in various levels within the supercomputer ecology. The ecology is made up of the hardware, the operating system, the compiler, the applications, the numerical libraries, and so on. And you have to maintain an investment across that whole software stack in order to effectively use the hardware. And that's an aspect that sometimes we forget about. It's underfunded. We fund the hardware but we don't fund the other components. The ecosystem tends to get out of balance because the hardware tends to run far ahead of what we can develop in terms of software. We have machines that have a tremendous level of parallelism. We currently have a very crude way of doing programming.

Who would do that?
Dongarra: The research is performed under the auspices of the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.

Is this a red flag for the U.S.?
Dongarra: Yes, this is a wake-up call. We need to realize that other countries are capable of doing this. We're losing an advantage.

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Reid: Angle is "Demagoguing" Immi Issue - TIME

Leader says he's "certain" his opponent is behind ads discouraging Latino voters from going to the polls in interview with Maddow.

Tells the MSNBC anchor she should "dress up as Bill O'Reilly" to increase chances of scoring interview with the GOPer.

On getting Latino voters out to the polls:

Reid: My goal is turnout all voters but I think we have an especially difficult situation which she has created ... All she does is cause people to be afraid. There is no reason to be afraid -- we've got to work our way through this issue. She has not issued one positive statement ... constructive statement about what we do with the issue of immigration. It's something we have to fix.

"We can’t do it with people like her demagoguing the issue. And to think -- to think -- that someone would suggest in America that people should not vote."

"She has been part of an effort to have people not vote ... That's about as un-American as you can get."

Maddow questions whether Angle is directly involved in the ads – says she thought it was an independent effort.

Reid: "Wouldn't you think that if something as negative, irresponsible ... wouldn't you think somebody would denounce it? ... she is in the background, urging them on -- I'm certain."

On Maddow getting interview with Angle:

Reid: "Maybe you should do what she does -- pretend you're somebody else ... maybe you could dress up as Bill O'Reilly."

Maddow: You know she might be more comfortable in that regard ... does anybody have a suit I can borrow."

"I don't think it's the suit, I think it's the face."

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