Another busy week in SEO! Here’s the roundup of the biggest updates, weirdest bugs, and most interesting findings this week:

📝 The proximity paradox: Beating local SEO’s distance bias (Miriam Ellis)

📝 Ben Franklin Effect applied to asking for reviews (Sam Knight)

📝 RIP Service Area Ranking Factor (Claudia Tomina)

📝 Google Local Pack Links To Places Tab With Pagination Bug (Barry Schwartz)

📝 Google Business Profiles adds scheduling and multi-location publishing to Google Posts (Barry Schwartz)

⭐ Download your Google reviews with the Whitespark Local Platform

Your favourite local SEO podcast is back, and we’ve got two weeks’ worth of SEO and marketing goodness to catch up on. In this episode, we discuss:

📝 Google Business Profile Support Tips Video (Lisa Landsman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzpb1ZKwZM
📝 Google announces anonymous Google reviews
📝 Raise the Bar: Optimizing your Google Business Profile
📝 New "Let Google Call" Button (Greg Sterling)
📝 SEO Imposter Syndrome In An AI Era: You’re [Not] On Your Own Kid (Elizabeth Linder)
📝 Mine your competitor’s reviews with Gemini (Anthony Kettaneh)

This week’s episode is shorter and packed with value. Darren highlights some key insights from Whitespark’s 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors report, and Claire tells you about some fantastic SEO and digital marketing content you don’t want to miss.

⭐ Whitespark's Official 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors

⭐ Whitespark's Official 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors Video

Here are the rest of the sources mentioned in this episode:

📝 Agentic capabilities in AI Mode (Rose Yao)

📝 The Ultimate Digital Marketing Training for 2026 (Exposure Ninja)

📝 Big Update to Google Posts (Claudia Tomina)