At the outset of today’s column, I referenced the Google leak in passing. If you’d like to hear more commentary on it from a local SEO perspective, here are two excellent conversations to tune into:

I find it interesting to reflect that the leak was met with so much speculation, even to the point of conspiracy theories that the leak was intentionally released to distract from the ongoing AI debacle. I personally feel conflicted about such occurrences.

On the one hand, I have a sincere respect for privacy and genuinely feel empathy for the engineer whose mistake let this go public. I can readily imagine how dreadful I’d feel if this was my fault, but these days, I’m celebrating the reality of human error, and I hope Google was forgiving about this accident.

On the other hand, I have a decades-long history of sympathy with local brands who feel like their operations exist at the pleasure of Google, with all its sway over their reputations and revenues.

The reaction to the leak is a worthy subject for socioeconomic study, revealing how desperate many of us feel to better understand this often-shadowy entity that shapes so much of both our personal and business lives. A more transparent web would be welcome.

And that’s a wrap for Q2 in local search! Please join me again in September for our fall edition of this series!