In what may well be a sign of things to come, it appears Google has removed 30% of organic listings on local market searches in some markets.

Note that in the above images, local maps appear, however, where there was once 10 organic listings there are now 7.

Do maps qualify as organic results?

Could Google increase the page to put the 10 listings back? That would mean they have to reassess the paid landscape on the side and that’s unlikely.

These results are not typical of Google.com, but are pervasive in alternate Googles.

There is an absolutely fascinating article on TheStreet.com (also interesting because the URL string tracks the source): eBay Snub Suggests Google’s Big Troubles.

It’s not so much interesting because it espouses everything I’ve said for the past couple months, not the least of which include the whole ebay thing and the fact that the loss or removel of paid advertising does not necessarily impact traffic IF (BIG IF) you have the organic results in place. (BTW ebay does, both in organic listings and in product listings.)

Do users really care that Terry Semel has left the building? Do they care that Jerry Yang and Susan Decker are the next net generation?

Do users really care that ebay has publicly stated that they won’t rely on Google Adwords with quite as much dependence having finished their ten day “test” and realized it’s a risk they can afford to take?

I doubt it.

There’s an interesting article today in Business Week regarding vertical or niche search.

And in watching everything that’s gone on recently regarding Yahoo, MSN, ebay and Google, my first thought was that Google was bullet-proof and had pretty much sewn the game up.

This was previously posted but we had a blog burp so we’re reposting it now. Cheers.

Earlier this week we had the pleasure of being the pleasure of being taken out to dinner by some Google folks up from Mountain View.

There were few surprises, but we all wound up with one unanimous and pleasantly surprisingly opinion: these were very pleasant, amicable folk.

Perhaps it’s our genteel, Canadian way, but we were, frankly, expecting alpha geeks with IQs off the charts and frankly little in common and less to talk about. Not so.

I’ve been watching with great curiousity the, ummm, tension between Google and ebay with great interest.

Who hasn’t?

To wit: Ebay holds annual ebay live convention, Google announces competing party with the unstated goal of having ebay/Paypal users force inclusion of Google Checkout.

Ebay gets, oh, what’s the word? PISSED Mildly annoyed. Ebay cancels all paid advertising on Google. How much? In excess of $100 Million annually or about 1% of Google income. Um, ouch.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

Our resident PPC dude, Sasha was wondering hither and yon over Google today and came up with this little nugget on a search for “business cards Toronto”.

This is everything that appears above the fold and if you look very, very carefully, very, very carefully and you’ll see it waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy at the bottom.

Why it couldn’t be, could it? An organic listing. A single organic listing.

There’s been a lot of chat regarding whether this is a good Google or a bad Google thing.

The buzz around the productivity sphere is the recent Associated Press poll which shows 1 in 5 bringing their laptop along on vacation.

Besides using that laptop to offload digital photos from the camera or watch a DVD or two, we do quite a bit of communicating on that vacation laptop.

Put on your site

1 in 5 of those who bring their laptop stay connected to work somehow. They check email, check work messages, work. And a whole bunch of course check our personal messages.

The number one request when it comes to online application is offline access.

It seems counterintuitive but yes, people want to be able to prepare email, read feeds, compose documents, offline and then, once online, have those actions translate back into the online application.

It is what has set hosted applications and locally ran software apart. Google Docs & Speadsheets is for online, Microsoft Office if for offline.

Not any more.

With Google Gears an online application, any online application, can be made to run offline as well.

Barry Schwartz has a look at Google Reader offline.

Peter Fleisch, Google’s global privacy counsel, while defending Google’s privacy policies, has admitted to the BBC that Google’s privacy policy is vague at at least two points.

“The general principle is that we are going to maintain the privacy of our users; that is pretty fundamental.

We will never transfer to third parties, including advertisers, any personally identifiable information about our users.

Our goal is to be as transparent as possible with our users when it comes to privacy. That transparency builds trust and we will succeed or fail on whether our users trust us.
– Peter Fleisch

Conversion is always a key component to any marketing strategy and Google’s new one is rather inviting.

In short, it’s a “Don’t click here” call to inaction.

And the five year old in me say: Uh-huh.

Mea culpa. I had to click something.

The long and short of it is I really can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. That little “don’t click here” order has stayed with me all afternoon.

And of course, if you see enough of those little don’t click here signs, I suppose it could prove enough incentive to move to the paid listings, but Google wouldn’t do that… would they?…