I first contacted Google via their help form (which by the way was a little hard to find) and got a canned response within a few hours of my request, which was no surprise.

I have to admit, I was a little skeptical, after all search engines are traditionally known to ignore Search Engine Marketing firms. They consider us 'the enemy'.

So imagine my surprise when I received an email from a real person a couple days later. He was anxious to talk to me about my clients and what they could contribute to Google Local.

We even set up a conference call between me, my client and the Google Local rep. He isn't a sales person - he is a tech from the Google Local team. We talked for about an hour and I learned more about Google local in that time then the hours before I'd spent researching the product.

He was very willing to share information on what Google Local is looking for and how we could optimize our client's site to help encourage an arrangement with Google

Local. Overall I was very impressed with the experience and was able to leave the call with a contact within Google Local who wants to work with me in the future.

Next I thought I'd try Yahoo! I figured if Google was willing to work with me - a search marketing consultant - then Yahoo! might as well. So I did the same thing - I perused the local section and found a link for help.

I submitted the form explaining who I was and what I'd like to do. And, as with Google, I received a canned response right away. Also like Google I also received a personal email from someone at Yahoo! local that said that someone from the local search team would be contacting me shortly, and if I hadn't heard from them in two days to let them know.

Two days came and went and I hadn't heard from a local rep, so I emailed my initial contact back but I still haven't heard from them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stop - I do want to make similar contact with someone at Yahoo! local but it's kinda disconcerting that they didn't get back in the time promised.

I consider myself a customer of Yahoo! so when I get bad customer service it reflects poorly on the company in my view. But I haven't lost hope yet.

Finally, while I was waiting for the Yahoo! local rep to get a hold of me, I also searched through MSN local to see what help there was and again found a form to submit and contact them.

By far this was the worst experience.

While I did get a somewhat custom response, their first reaction was to send me to what appears to be a competitor to Enquiro with whom they must have an arrangement.

I feel as if my email was not given the proper attention it should have been perhaps because I said in it that I work for an SEM firm.

I feel like MSN dismissed my request without considering the consequences, because if you look at some of our clients shown on our client list you will see that we have some pretty large clients. And this is only a fraction of our client list. We have many other extremely well known brands.

We are not your typical mom and pop SEO firm yet I feel as if they treated me like it.

Granted they probably get hundreds of requests like that on a daily basis, but they really should take the time to look at the requests.

After all, one of our goals at Enquiro is to help improve the user's search experience. That means sharing our research results with the search engines, which we have done, to help them improve user's interactions with the engines.

In the end I will still pursue contact with both Yahoo! and MSN in an effort to help improve my clients search engine positioning locally, but already I have a bad taste in my mouth with both of them. Hopefully someone from Yahoo! local and MSN local reads this and gets back to me. But in the meantime I'll keep trying.


Rob Sullivan
Head Organic Search Strategist
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing