BOTW Local Launches Beta of Local Search & Social Platform
Yesterday I posted a small review of BOTW Local on Search Engine Journal and referenced the Beta launch they announced on June 18th.
It’s worth recapping here as well because frankly, the system kicks ass when it’s responsive. I’ve noticed a few delays in using the system today, but this is a Beta service right now, so I’m willing to forgive BOTW.
The most important thing here though is that it’s a free resource for those who don’t have a website up and running. In my article I made reference to the fact that there’s only limited markets (Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Chicago and Austin) being fully spidered, right? So, I started little test to see if these pages are ranking yet, but I couldn’t find too much. Still, with the clout that BOTW carries in our space, it should be little to no time at all before these pages are being indexed prominently.
Once that happens, we should assume BOTW Local profiles will become a larger part of reputation management campaigns too. So, get familiar with the system now. You know how early adopters always profit from their engagement and familiarity with social tools.
Oddly, with more than 16 million listings – the service is in beta. It’s scary when you think of just how many establishments there are out there that need to be properly represented. Go get started with their Jump Start program which includes free listings and upgradeable profiles.
2 thoughts on “BOTW Local Launches Beta of Local Search & Social Platform”
Hi Eric:
Thanks for the posts about BOTW Local. We’re happy to hear that your original impression of the offering is positive. Keeping in mind that it’s still in beta, we’re pretty pleased with it too :)
I’d love to hear what types of queries you ran to test to see how we’re showing. I’m surprised to hear that you “couldn’t find too much” because the queries I run all seem pretty strong. Stuff like:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Xoho+Boutique
where we pull #5 for that business.
Considering that we have done zero marketing to date, we’re pleased as punch to see those types of results…
[Eric edited this comment on 06/24/08 to shorten the URL of the Google SERP only. The length of the link was causing a formatting error.]
Thanks for swinging by Greg, it’s much appreciated. I ran some tests in the Austin market for company names that appeared on the first page. One that I recall would be for “starlite austin tx” on Google. Again, just one example I recall.