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)

We are back with another episode of the Whitespark Local Update, where our host Darren Shaw and special guest Claudia Tomina discuss:

📝 Google Business Profile Updates Identity Change Policy Language

📝 Why Are My Google Reviews Disappearing? What Businesses Need to Know About Google's New Review Policies and Algorithm Updates (Claudia Tomina)

📝 How a Topic Entity Update Increased AI Visibility 10.8% (Aimee Jurenka)

📝 Top Takeaways from the New Google Business Profile Playbooks (Miriam Ellis)

🔥 Reputation Arm

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back with another episode of the Whitespark Local Update. In this one, they talk about:

📝 Google Just Elevated Text Messaging to a Primary Conversion Action (Aaron Weiche)

🔥 Leadferno: https://leadferno.com/

📝 Your guide to local search in the age of AI (Amanda Jordan, Wix Studio)

📝 Ask Maps inside the Google Maps app just got a lot more personal (Claudia Tomina)

📝 How To Contact Support When Your GBP Edit Is Rejected (Stefan Somborac on the Local Search Forum)

📝 Video editing features in Google Maps (Valentina Vasileva)

📝 You can add captions to photos directly while uploading them in the GBP dashboard (Valentina Vasileva)

📝 Can AI responses be influenced? The SEO industry is trying (Mia Sato)

📝 The people who ruined the internet (Amanda Chicago Lewis)

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back with a new episode of the Whitespark Local Update. Here’s what they cover in this one:

📝 The Truth About Multi-Location Franchise SEO (And Why AI Isn’t What You Think) (NearMedia and Steve Wiideman)

📝 Brands, Imagery, Reviews & Intent Pages: What Actually Drives Multi-Location SEO Now (Part 2) (NearMedia and Steve Wiideman)

📝 If your local rankings are off, your map pin may be the reason (Claudia Tomina)

📝 AI Is Not Search. Here's What It Actually Is (Brittney Muller on The Ross Simmonds Show)

📝 How Google Click Signals Drive SEO Rankings and AI Answers (Cyrus Shepard)

📝 The SERP in 2026: A data-driven feature analysis (Stat Search Analytics)

📝 The top 5 SERP features of 2026 and how to appear in them (Stat Search Analytics)

📝 20 Local Developments You Need to Know About from Q1 2026 (Miriam Ellis)

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back with another episode of the Whitespark Local Update. Here’s what they’re talking about today:

📝 Ask Maps in Google Maps – When Local Search Meets Gemini AI (Glenn Gabe)

📝 How we’re reimagining Maps with Gemini (Google’s Official Announcement)

📝 Google Reviews for Businesses: What the New Guidelines Mean for Your Local Reputation (Krystal Taing)

📝 Why Tripadvisor still matters for local SEO in 2026 (Laura I. Abreu)

📝 Star Ratings Are for Humans: AI Reads the Text (Claudia Tomina)

📝 You Know Your Product is Awesome - But Does Anybody Else? (April Dunford)

📝 How AI is impacting local search and what tools to use to get ahead (Miriam Ellis)

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back with your weekly dose of local SEO goodness. Here’s what they’re talking about today:

📝 The AI Playbook for Restaurants: What to Do Right Now (David “Rev” Ciancio)

📝 How should agencies build a business around Google Local Service Ads (LSAs)? (NearMedia)

📝 New Branded Queries Filter in Google Search Console

📝 I Built a 60,000-Page AI Website for $10: GPTBot Crawled It 30,000+ Times in 12 Hours (Metehan Yesilyurt)

📝 New Attribute in Google Business Profile (Claire Carlile, Hava Hadzhiibryam)

📝 New Google Business Profile Playbooks:

• Restaurants & Cafés
• Hotels & Accommodations
• Tour & Activity Operators
• Service-Based Businesses (Plumbers, Cleaners, etc.)
• General Business Playbook

📝 Whitespark + Women in Tech SEO Partnership

In this episode of the Whitespark Local Update, Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw discuss:

📝 New Research: Search Happens Everywhere; an Analysis of 41 Websites with Significant Search Activity (Rand Fishkin)

📝 AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It (Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye)

📝 The AI Prompt That Shows Why Your Contact Page Stinks (Andy Crestodina)

📝 The perfect local business contact page built for Google and conversions (Darren Shaw)

📝 Google Review Discrepancies: AI Response Facts, Missing Reviews, and API Issues

📝 Google Posts 101 Workshop (Lisa Landsman)

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back again with another episode of the Whitespark Local Update Podcast. This time, they cover:

📝 Google’s Minimum Viable Content Refresh (Steve Toth)

📝 Google is Nudging Reviewers to Edit Their Past Reviews (Claudia Tomina)

📝 Reviews + The Real World: Learnings From Famed Restaurant Reviewer, Marilyn Hagerty (Miriam Ellis)

📝 Updated Privacy Guidelines for Suspension & Reinstatement Requests (Vinay Toshniwal)

📝 What Extraction Method Is Google Using to Build Grounding Snippets? (Dan Petrovic)

📝 Careful With Google Business Profile Verification Flow (Claudia Tomina)

📝 Whitespark’s New Google Business Profile Reinstatement Service