If you are a business owner, and have a website as part of your on-line marketing strategy, this bit of news may be of interest to you. Recently, Google announced that it is now supporting what it calls “rich snippets” for local search.

“Rich snippets” is basically Google’s implementation of various “microformats”. Microformats are pieces of structured HTML code that can describe your website page, which in turn will help Google properly classify your website, make it accessible on their Place pages, and also help them understand the content on the page itself.

While it may sound daunting, rich snippets are very easy to implement, and help Google identify information such as reviews, people profiles, business listings, and events. As a simple example, let’s say you have a webpage where you normally list your contact details using the following HTML code:

<p>

   <h4>Bob’s Building Company</h4>

   Contact me, Andrew Other, on:<br />

   Work: 01252 XXXX<br />

   Cell: 0795 XXXXXXX<br /><br />

   Our work address is:<br />

   147 Some Street<br />

   Another Town<br />

   GU8 8AA, UK

</p>

With rich snippets, you can now tell Google what each bit of information represents:

<p class=”vcard”>

   <h4 class=”org”>Bob’s Building Company</h4>

   Contact me, <span class=”fn”>Andrew Other</span>, on:<br />

   <span class="tel">

      <span class="type">Work</span>:

      <span class="value">01252 XXXX</span><br />

   </span>   

   <span class="tel">

      <span class="type">Cell</span>:

      <span class="value">0795 XXXXXXX</span><br /><br />

   </span>

   <div class="adr">

      Our <span class="type">work</span> address is:<br />

      <span class="street-address">147 Some Street</span><br />

      <span class=”locality”>Another Town</span><br />

      <span class=”region”>Hampshire</span><br />

      <span class=”postal-code”>GU8 8AA</span>, <span class=”country-name”>UK</span>

   </div>

</p>

While this may at first glance look strange, close inspection shows there is method to the madness. Let’s break it down:

<p class=”vcard”>: This tells Google that all information between the opening and closing <p></p> tags is part of a vCard. A vCard is a microformat standard that helps describe information about a person or business.

<h4 class=”org”>Bob’s Building Company</h4>: org tells Google that “Bob’s Building Company” is the name of the organisation that this vCard is associated with.

<span class=”fn”>Andrew Other</span>: fn tells Google that “Andrew Other” is the name of the person this vCard is associated with. (if fn and org both have the same value, Google will treat the vCard as being details for a place of business). This next one is a bit more tricky:

<span class="tel">
   <span class="type">Work</span>:
   <span class="value">01252 XXXX</span><br />
</span>

The first portion, <span class=”tel”> … </span> tells Google that everything between the <span></span> tags  is a telephone number. <span class=”type”>Work</span> then tells Google the the telephone number is a Work number, and then <span class=”value”>01252 XXXX</span>instructs Google as to what the telephone number actually is.

The next telephone number deals with a cellphone number, so you’ll see that we used the same format as the work number, but we told Google that the type is different:  <span class=”type”>Cell</span>

The last portion of our example details the work address for Andrew Other:

<div class="adr">
   Our <span class="type">work</span> address is:<br  />
   <span class="street-address">147 Some  Street</span><br />
   <span class=”locality”>Another Town</span><br  />
   <span class=”region”>Hampshire</span><br />
   <span class=”postal-code”>GU8 8AA</span>, <span  class=”country-name”>UK</span>
</div>

As you can see, the format is quite similar yet again.  <div class=”adr”> is telling Google that the information that follows details an address, <span class=”type”>work</span> says it is a work address, and then each element of the address is broken down according to “street-address”, “locality”, “region”, “postal-code” and “country-name”.

There are many different codes for the hCard format, which can be viewed on the Microformat website, along with more in-depth explanations, and examples.

Also, as mentioned earlier, Google also supports formats for reviews, events, businesses and organisations, and even recipes.

For more information on Google’s Rich Snippets, the following links should help:

Rich Snippets for Local Search
Rich Snippets Help Documentation

The brand new version of Bizwiki.co.uk went live yesterday at lunchtime. Apart from being shinier, faster and easier to use than ever before, there is one change that will be instantly noticeable and that brings it in line with the US Bizwiki.com:

Bizwiki.co.uk is now review-free

This may seem to be bucking the trend for websites, with every second site on the web now offering review functionality, but we took the view that we would rather focus our efforts on what Bizwiki does best: building up a unique directory of detailed information about companies and businesses that any user can help improve and enlarge.

Bizwiki has always been dedicated to information over opinion, so it was on request from users that we rolled out a review feature for our UK site at a time where there were less alternatives. Apart from the useful information reviews provide, our goal was to ensure that opinions had their own space on the site and were less likely to be added to information sections.

Over the last few years we have seen the site and its users develop and change, and now an increasing proportion of registered Editors are representatives, owners or managers of businesses and companies. The quality of information has been consistently improving and we’ve been very happy to see the user base grow along with it.

We launched the US version of Bizwiki.com without reviews, and found that this has been nothing but beneficial in clarifying the purpose of this as the wiki for business, and distinguishing Bizwiki from sentiment-orientated sites like Yelp and Angieslist.

We are confident that this improved focus will give our users more of what they want, and enable our editors and staff to concentrate on increasing both the breadth of the site and the depth of information available about each record.

Finally I’d like to thank our Lead Developer Craig Sefton and Chief Technical Architect Keith Hinde for their tireless efforts to rebuild the site and get this new and highly improved version live.

Enjoy the new Bizwiki!

A note to businesses:

During the time that reviews were featured on Bizwiki.co.uk some companies accumulated a number of reviews from the public that they may want to retain. If so, don’t worry, nothing has been deleted. The reviews are not being displayed on this site, but are still available on request if you would like to get a copy of them for use on your own website or in your advertising material.

Email us at team@bizwiki.co.uk before the end of 2010 with the name of the company and we will send you a text copy of the reviews received free of charge.

Thanks.

The Bizwiki project reached another milestone earlier today, when our 100,000th Editor registered on Bizwiki.co.uk.

We believe the most important thing about this achievement is that it is a good time to say ‘Thank you’ to these people, many of whom are busy company managers and representatives of the businesses they are updating, for their assistance in building up the wiki for business.

Millions of people access and use the information on the sites every month, but it is the people who join the site to edit, add and improve the information on it that make Bizwiki what it is.

The Bizwiki site is built around a self-organised and collaborative community that any of our users are invited to join. Rather than the usual experience of just reading what a website has to say, everyone is invited to actively participate. Users can help produce for themselves the best and most comprehensive index of businesses on the web, or the most detailed index of companies in their town or even street.

If you’d like to join in, add a company or update any of the information on the site, just click the Create Account link to become a Bizwiki Editor.

It’s a fast-growing club you are more than welcome to join!

We are pleased to be able to announce that Bizwiki.com now powers the business listings on the Allonesearch.com local search website.

You can now find information provided directly from Bizwiki powering Allonesearch’s search functionality and appearing on many of the business directory pages.

What this exciting development means to our visitors is that by adding your business or increasing the amount of information available about it on Bizwiki, you will get exposure not only to out community of users on this site but also to people using Allonesearch for local information and yellow page look-ups.

If you would like to get a new company added to both Bizwiki and Allonesearch.com it’s now easier than ever, just click to add it right here.

And the best part is that it’s completely free to do so. That’s the wiki difference.

We are happy to announce that the American version of Bizwiki.com went fully live today. Bizwiki was launched as an Alpha in the USA in December 2008, promising to change the way local search works by enabling its users to build up the most detailed and up-to-date index of business in the United States.

The new fully live version features over 5,000 categories of business, and in contrast to traditional Yellow Pages websites invites business owners and representatives to add and improve their companies’ records with everything from contact details to prices and opening hours, completely free of charge.

“We are also launching new functionality today that allows the site’s users to ‘Watch’ any business, receiving an email notifying them of any additions and edits,” said Bizwiki co-founder Matt Aird. “This is useful for anyone who is interested in following changes, but is primarily designed to empower people to get involved in claiming their own businesses and ensuring the information the public sees stays as accurate and relevant as possible.”

Creating a ‘Watchlist’ of businesses on Bizwiki is free. Representatives are invited to sign up with Bizwiki.com and look up the companies they are interested in, then simply click ‘Watch this business’ to receive notification of any changes to the record. They are also able to add more information and details to records while doing so.

At the moment the Watchlist functionality is only available on Bizwiki.com, but expect to see it duplicated on Bizwiki.co.uk in the coming months.

We are happy to announce that after months of hard work, thousands of hours of dedicated effort by our editors and tens of thousands of contributions of business details from both company owners and the general public, the full set of business categories is now live on Bizwiki.com.

This is a real mile-stone in the progress of this project, meaning that the site has moved out of Beta into its fully live version. There are now over 5,000 categories of business on Bizwiki.com, divided into vertical groups of similar categories to make navigating and searching the site easy.

We expect to make further improvements over the months ahead, particularly as some of these categories are fleshed out with additional companies and details, but in the meantime we’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has added records or edited and improved the information on Bizwiki. It is greatly appreciated.

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Watch this space in 2010!

The BizwikiBot web crawler has been extremely busy recently, and we’re happy to say we’ve been able to add additional detail to hundreds of thousands of businesses right across America.

Our custom-built BizwikiBot is programmed to perform tasks such as confirming or updating vital contact details and retrieving and processing a short portion of text about companies. As well as adding additional useful content about companies on the site, this is a great help to our human editors in keeping information up to date.

Expect to additional information appearing on over a hundred thousand more company pages over the weeks ahead as BizwikiBot continues its crawling, indexing and sorting of data.

You can add a new company to Bizwiki or add a website to an existing business record and the site will be added to a list for BizwikiBot to spider in its next pass.

 What is BizwikiBot?

BizwikiBot is a web crawler programmed to browse the internet in a methodical, automated manner. When visiting sites, BizwikiBot spiders pages and retrieves text as a means of providing up-to-date information about businesses to the many people who use the Bizwiki site.

This automatically spidered information is added to the hand-written content, providing additional detail to the site’s users. Registered users can edit and add to these records, with a goal of providing the public with a more complete picture of each company.

BizwikiBot is designed to be a polite bot, following any instructions from the site’s owners and using the minimum bandwidth and server resources.

If you would like information about managing how BizwikiBot interacts with your site, or need to know how to prevent it accessing certain pages, please see http://www.bizwiki.com/bizwikibot.htm#managing

We hope you find the new content and information useful!

The US Yellow Pages industry’s associations have jointly announced the launch of an opt out phone number look up for your local yellow pages.

Unfortunately it’s not an online form. It’s just a list of phone numbers to call. Still, I suppose it’s a step in the right direction in that it makes it easier to find the opt out numbers.

Go to the search form here and put in your zip code. The site then comes back with the Yellow Page directories that deliver to your area and the number to call if you want to opt out of receiving the printed directory.

I haven’t tried it yet so I have no idea how long you might be on hold. Nor can I confirm it works. From reports such as this one getting them to actually stop delivering the books might not be as easy as making a few calls.

The continuing debate about Yellow Pages opt out/opt in is still on. If the companies will actually honor the opt out requests they receive then this may go some way towards cooling the animosity and frustration that the indiscriminate dumping of the books has created in many households.

There are third party services that offer to do all the calling for you such as this one. Note that in order for them to do this you have to provide them with your personal details such as name and address.

The Canadian Yellow Pages Group is actually leading the way here in that it allows opt out using a – wait for it – dedicated online form (whatever will they think of next?). They also have a number you can call 1-800-268-5637.

In the UK, the Yellow Page publishers don’t even publish the opt out numbers. For Yell it’s 0800 671 444 or your can try using their general contact form. For Thomson Directories it’s 01252 555 555, use their general contact form or email info@thomsonlocal.com. And for BT it’s 0800 800150.

Alternatively try this service that sends a form on your behalf to all three plus the Royal Mail’s Door to Door opt out scheme, The Direct Marketing Association’s opt out scheme and the Mail Preference Service. Sounds good to me. Just be aware that emails can get lost, stuck in the spam filter or simply ignored. If you want to be absolutely sure that you’ll be removed from their distribution list you might have to pick up the phone.

In Australia Telstra’s Sensis allows you to opt out by calling 1800 810 211 or by emailing bookdelivery@sensis.com.au.

According to the New York Times, in a move to tighten up control of sensitive information Wikipedia will soon require approval from an experienced editor before changes to articles about living people are displayed on the site.

In February we reported that Wikipedia was considering just such a move in our post Wikipedia breaks with the tradition of ‘Anything Goes’. They are now going ahead with what is being termed “flagged revisions” which means that any revisions done to articles about living people will not be published instantly but rather be flagged and reviewed by an experienced editor. If it’s approved, the revision will then be published and visible to the general public.

This is very similar to the way Bizwiki works, with editors involved in the approval and moderation of new company data and business information. The difference is that we do this for all records, rather than just some, because we believe it’s vitally important that users can trust and rely on the site’s information.

With people from school children to journalists to CEO’s citing Wikipedia as a reference, ensuring the accuracy of the articles has to be paramount. Mr. Wales, Wikipedia’s founder, obviously agrees and is taking steps towards protecting both Wikipedia’s information and its reputation.

This additional step in the process is sure to be controversial as it means editing these articles will no longer be instant, and the division of experienced volunteer editors from new users is a move away from treating everyone as equal contributors of knowledge. However, I see it more as a necessary maturation of their approach as more and more people are relying on their site for information.

If anything, my prediction is that this trend will continue, with Wikipedia gradually tightening up the control of other sections of the site. With the breadth of articles on Wikipedia now being so huge they can afford to slow down the acceptance of new information for the sake of accuracy and honesty.

They can afford to lose speed, but not trust.

Taking another huge step in the right direction AT&T is looking to begin phasing out the distribution of its printed white pages phone book. According to an article by WSB News, the company has requested permission from the Georgia Public Service Commission to stop delivering white pages to homes in Atlanta, Chamblee, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, East Point, Hapeville, Lithonia, Sandy Springs and Tucker. If approved, those areas would not receive phone books from December 2009.

Households in those areas that do want to receive the white pages can opt in. And of course, they are going to continue printing the business white and yellow pages. AT&T have already moved towards a white pages opt-in scheme in other states.

This is fantastic news and definitely a progressive move. In their request to discontinue delivery of the white pages to Altanta metro households, AT&T acknowledged the environmental benefits of no longer publishing 876,000+ phone books for the area per year, most of which probably became doorstops, booster seats, impromptu stools and gently leaning towers gathering dust in some forgotten corner.

Hopefully we will continue to see more and more areas moved over to an opt in scheme for phone book delivery. Some people do use printed phone books and there is no reason why those people shouldn’t be able to receive them. An opt in scheme would work well for everyone (except maybe the publishers looking to sell expensive YP advertising).

A post from last year provides an interesting look at the opt-out debate surrounding business yellow pages and how desperately the industry does not want to allow it to happen. That was in October 2008. Maybe we’re seeing a shift beginning with the white pages, maybe not.

If you like the idea of banning unsolicited white page door drops you can sign the petition over at Ban the Phone Book. Does anyone know if there’s a similar one for Yellow Pages?