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

The local search world never slows down, and Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back to break down the biggest developments from the past week:

📝 How To Mine Google Search Console For Conversation Data (Regex Included) (Chris Long)

📝 Have AI Get Prices – Google Business Profiles – AI Talking to AI (Ben Fisher)

📝 Updated Google Business Profile Policies (Hiroko Imai)

📝 How to Create AI Personas: 5 Prompts for Smart Marketing Alignment (Andy Crestodina)

📝 Stop Chasing the Local 3-Pack, Start Building an Entity That Ranks Beyond it (Claudia Tomina)

📝 Google Business Profile Violations Google ACTUALLY Punishes (SterlingSkyInc)

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back to recap the most important local SEO developments from the past two weeks. In this episode, they cover:

📝 Google Reviews Bug on Chrome (Vinay Toshniwal)

📝 New “Insights” section in GBP (Dipa Gandhi)

📝 AI Isn’t Replacing Local Search (Crystal Carter on the NearMemo podcast)

📝 How to improve LSA visibility (Eric Levine on the NearMemo podcast)

📝 What if User Satisfaction is the most important factor in SEO? (Marie Haynes)

📝 Moving from a Google-shaped Web to an Agent-shaped Web (Mike King)

📝 Does Schema Help with AI Visibility? (Mark Williams-Cook)

😍 Whitespark Local Ranking Grids

Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are back with a fresh roundup of the most important local SEO updates from last week. In this episode, they cover:

📝 Ranking in Google's AI Results in 2026 with Mike King (SterlingSky)

📝 The local SEO gatekeeper: How Google defines your entity (Claudia Tomina)

📝 Franchise Website Migration & Improved Local SEO For BTDT (Kick Point)

📝 We've Analysed 236 SEO, Content, Social, and Digital PR case studies (Rise at Seven)

📝 Whitespark’s Ultimate Guide to Local Business Reputation Management (Miriam Ellis)

📝 The Future of Brand Visibility: Optimizing for AI Citations with Dan Petrovic & Jes Scholz (Patrick Hathaway, Sitebulb)

📝 How To Contact GBP Support (Stefan Somborac)

It was a busy week in local SEO, so Claire and Darren are breaking down the updates you actually need to know.
In this episode, they talk about:

📝 Query Fan-Out in Practice: Turning One Search into an Omnimedia Content Plan (Francine Monahan)

📝 Tough Reinstatement Season Reminder (Vinay Toshniwal)

📝 Common Crawl is Interesting (Cyrus S.)

📝 Google’s announcement on the ‘Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)’

📝 What UCP Means for Ecommerce SEO: Preparing for Agentic Commerce (Aleyda Solis)

📝 Meta Title Tags Length SEO Experiment (Dr James Davidson)

📝 How to Clone Yourself (or make an AI advisor for anything) (Orbitmedia)

Your favorite local SEO podcast is finally back after the holidays and packed with local SEO goodness 🔥 In this episode, Claire and Darren discuss:

📝 Social profiles showing up in Search Console (Steve Toth)

📝 Google is pulling in “Today” justifications into the Local Pack from Instagram posts (Valentina Vasileva)

📝 1-Minute-a-Day Strategy for Getting More Yelp Reviews (Phil Rozek)

📝 Top digital marketing trends and predictions for 2026 (Phil Wilson)

📝 Why many firms should stop competing on reviews (NearMemo, Gyi Tsakalakis)

📝 The Google Business Profile 2-Hour Rule is a Myth (SterlingSky)

We’re wrapping up the year with a special episode of the Whitespark Local Update! Darren is joined by the one and only Mike Blumenthal from Near Media. In this episode, they discuss:

📝 Google Removing Q&A Feature In Google Maps For AI-Powered Ask Button (Barry Schwartz)
📝 A Guide to Web Guide: Our Hybrid Search Future (Dr. Peter J. Meyers)
📝 AI-generated VS Human-written SEO Content (Andrew van Rossenberg)
📝 People Prefer AI-written Content (Kevin Indig)
📝 The Global Wave of Deleted Google Reviews: What Our Data Reveals About AI, Law, and Trust (Michel van Luijtelaar)
📝 Complaints About Review Takedowns Are Rising (Mike Blumenthal)
📝 AI Mode and Agentic Local Results (Mike Blumenthal)
📝 Future of the SERP Is Dynamic (Near Media)
⭐Near Media Podcast