Reading through the responses that Google compiled to some of the claims being made against the company by the likes of Yelp, NexTag, FairSearch and more there was one piece of information that jumped out at me with a claim and Google’s response.

CLAIM: “Is a consumer (or a small business, for that matter) well served when Google artificially promotes its own properties regardless of merit? This has nothing to do with helping consumers get to the best information; it has everything to do with generating more revenue.”

RESPONSE: In fact, most of the click traffic (roughly two-thirds of clicks) from our local search result pages goes directly to small business websites, and review sites make up the next largest percentage (about a quarter of clicks). Less than 10% of clicks from our local results page go to Google Place Pages.

If you ever deal with any aspect of local SEO you know the Google Places dance. One step forward with 2 or three giant steps backwards followed by a bit of stumbling around then falling flat on your face with no one to help you up. It’s not a lot fun to do but apparently Google likes to watch their customers suffer through it.

Well, there may be some help. Starting last Thursday (Sept. 8, 2011) Google Places users have a two week window to pose questions about the things that baffle them about Google places like merged listings, listings appearing out of nowhere, places being listed as permanently closed. You get the drift.

The Google Small Business blog tells us

By now you may be aware that Google made another purchase yesterday. This time they jumped into the deep end of the places review game by buying the venerable review service Zagat’s. They have made no bones about what this means to the Google local offering which is still in flux and coming together one purchase and baffling systems change at a time.

The Google blog post from Google’s VP of Local, Maps and Location Services, Marissa Mayer tells us

So, today, I’m thrilled that Google has acquired Zagat. Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world.

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article that addresses what is becoming a rather serious issue in the local online marketing space.

The issue is around just how easy it is for someone to get a Google Places listing tagged as “Permanently Closed”. Now, in a world where there was respect and decency this shouldn’t be that big a deal but we are talking about the Internet here. If there is a way for someone to make a buck or prevent someone from making a buck by exploiting a hole in an open system like Google Places you can bet there will be those who will do it and even smile when they do.

The article reads

We contacted Darren Shaw to talk to our Marketing Pilgrim readers about local SEO. Darren is the founder of Whitespark located in the Edmonton, Alberta area (that’s in Canada for those geographically challenged readers).

Darren has made a name for himself in the local search community with his development of the Whitespark Local Citation Finder. Darren was kind enough to conduct an e-mail interview with us so we could learn more about the local search game. Enjoy!

MP: Darren, give our readers some history about your time in the industry.

Darren: I started developing websites in 1996 while in my first year of computing science at university. I would skip my calculus classes and hang out in the labs fiddling with HTML and Javascript. I failed calculus 3 times

There was a time when all a local business needed was a phone and an ad in the Yellow Pages in order to bring in customers. Today, 97% of Americans go online to find local services but only 63% of small businesses have a web presence. Why? Because as hard as it may be for anyone who reads MarketingPilgrim to believe, not everyone knows how to build a website.

Then there’s this: “the nation’s 27.5M small businesses comprise half the US GDP and create two-thirds of all new jobs.” SMBs truly are the backbone of our economy and they’re also the ones who struggle the most to remain afloat.

The State of Missouri wants to help, so they’ve partnered with Google and Intuit for the “Missouri Get Your Business Online” campaign.

Seems like a lot of big names are steering clear of the deals space. The latest news comes from Yelp. While they haven’t abandoned the space completely they are certainly rethinking their position and just how much effort along with resources they will throw at it. Is this a yelp for help? Not really but it does make one wonder about the deal space in general.

Bloomberg Businessweek reports

Yelp Inc., a website that collects local business reviews, is scaling back its year-old deal service, following Facebook Inc.’s retreat from a market where consumers and merchants say they’re becoming inundated.

Yelp will cut its sales staff dedicated to Yelp Deals by half, the company said yesterday. Facebook, the world’s largest social network, said on Aug. 26 it would shut down its Deals local-discount feature, decamping from a business it entered in April. Both services were started to compete with Groupon Inc.