If you’ve been around for a while you will know what I mean when I refer to the now defunct Yahoo Local, but Google Boost sure looks a lot like it!
That being said, I am really watching Google Boost carefully. Google Boost a new monetization tactic being used for Google Places aka Google Maps and is currently being tested in Chicago, San Francisco, and Houston. If you use it, you set up your account, add your credit card and select one of three click levels for a month. Google does the rest. It creates pay per click ads, keywords, manages your cost per click. All you do is pay.
And pay you will, with a totally automated ad serving and automated click costs don’t expect Google Boost to be saving you any money. In the Yahoo Local model, you selected how many clicks you wanted to get each month and Yahoo delivered. You even tied up the top spots in organic-looking placement on the Yahoo Local search engine. So far in the beta testing the Google Boost ads are differentiated only with a blue map icon. They look similar to an organic listing.
Additionally, Google Boost ads will appear on Google Places, Google Maps searches and even on Google.com. My feeling is that this will never replace Google AdWords, but that Google is looking to sop up the market when it comes to Mom and Pop shops with low budgets that don’t want to get into AdWords or users who think AdWords is so complicated. Google Boost is a step below even the Google Starter Edition.
But Google will make tons of money off of this new vehicle and this is why I am really watching Google Boost. You should be too!