My positive feedback was from the standpoint of a beginner and as a first time visitor to the meetup. I was sitting next to a gentleman who said he was just getting started with SEO and after the meeting stated that he was happy with the information. From a beginner’s standpoint I think enough information was given out to give them something to move forward with. However, I can understand how those with your experience can see it as not very informative. I’m not as knowledgeable about SEO as you but I thought the information was pretty basic and stated that in my feedback.

Based on your experience I think you would have been better suited to sit on the panel than a few of those who were chosen.

As for them respecting the time I do stand corrected. I had forgotten they didn’t get started until almost 7:30. I was alluding more to the fact of them getting done by 9:00pm. Thanks for the correction.

Is this how these meetups typically go or is there usually more worthwhile information given out? It’s about a 70 mile round trip for me to go and I want to make sure it’s worth my time.

Thanks again,

Russ

That did the trick, indeed…

I was trying to let it as a last resort, as I usually don’t erase cookies and browsing history often…but this time it was needed.
Thanks a lot for ‘encouraging’ me, LOL

Sometimes I am acting so silly, he, he…

Steve Lorenzo SEOVirtuoso
Helping YOU To Get Found!

No, I haven’t seen or heard of such thing until you. It’s working just fine for me. I don’t think it has anything to do with your IP.

Question, have you tried clearing your cookies/cache and doing a search again?

Try that and let me know.

Kevin

I was wondering if you encountered such a strange behavior, too…

I am using two different computers, one at home, another in the office, both usually running Firefox for a browser.

On my home computer, no matter how I’m trying to figure out the settings on my Google account, when I search for something I cannot see the Wonder Wheel anymore; while in my office, logged into Google with the same user, I still do…

Now, it may seem to be stupid, as the option is shown by Big G on THEIR page, but I even tried to see it in different browsers, he, he… (silly, huh?)

Anyway, the only difference seems to be, obviously, the IP…

So, I’d like to know if you have any idea about this behaviour?

Thanks a bunch!

Steve Lorenzo SEOVirtuoso
Helping YOU To Get Found!

Russ may have said they were respectful of the time, but no, they were not. They were shooting into the wind with a bunch of BS and answering questions without answering them. I mean, the panel wasn’t finished until 8:40PM… it was supposed to start at 7PM but it was like 7:30 before they finally got started or something.

I didn’t stick around for networking although I wanted to. It was just too late. I’m sure I’ll still go to the meetups, but it will really depend on who these speakers are.

See you later.

Well, I’m surprised you agreed after your positive feedback, but glad to see that you agree.

Thanks for the extra tidbit about the local maps situation. I actually like the change. I fully support it.

Great examples, but “web design dallas” does not result in a local map. It appears if it not a specific industry like dentists, doctors, stores, groceries, restaurants, etc we’d need additional terms such as “in”, “around”, “near”, etc.

Now I don’t feel so bad about missing this meeting… I don’t have time for this type of thing… too busy with other things… too busy because with what I started learning from you last summer, my business keeps improving every month, and I am learning more and more about SEO from the guys like you who really have your act together and don’t mind sharing what you know…

So let them bury themselves with these panels of people who don;t have a clue, I know has a clue, and another one next week and so on and so and and….

Mark

It was a pleasure speaking with you and Diana last night.

I agree with your assessment of the meet up. Most of the information provided could have been given by someone relatively new to SEO. I really didn’t think there was any ‘meat’ to the meeting.

Regarding the question about Google not showing local maps when searching for certain terms, mainly technology related ones – it will show a map if you put certain words in the query. For instance your example of ‘web design dallas’ won’t return a map but if you put in ‘web design in dallas’, or web design near dallas, or ‘web design around dallas’ it will return a map.

There was a discussion in the Google Maps Help forum regarding this and one of the Google employees named Joel H gave the following answer:

“Hi Folks –

Earlier thread, Brian (BB- baseonballs) noted that this may be related to a known issue regarding the display of local search results on google.com. After further investigation, they are slightly different, and I’ll explain our intent.

Today, we’re intentionally showing less local results for web design / SEO queries. For example, [web design sacramento] doesn’t display local listings today. We believe this is an accurate representation of user intent. In some cases, we do show local listings, however (as NSNA/php-er noted) [web design in bellingham]. I’m sure some of you feel we should be displaying local results for queries like [Web Design Vancouver]. I understand that concern, but based on our understanding of our users, we feel this is the right decision for now.

I’ll give the usual disclaimer that we’re constantly working on improving the user experience and results will vary over time. So, this could change in the future, but I wanted to be explicit about what we’re doing today.”

It would seem as if Google is thinking they know more about what we’re searching for than we do!

We’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

So for them to go over very basic info and even providing inadequate answers, I simply wasn’t impressed. The social media part really baffled me for sure.

There really was more to point out, but then I’d just be anal. Pardon my English. It is my second language .

See you in February