Tom Pitts Dot Org

Google and Yahoo search pages now often include maps and local business information into their results. Search engines often act as yellow pages for people so verifying your local contact information should help customers find and contact you.

Many businesses are already in Google and Yahoo because they take information from Yellow Pages, other telecom databases and directories. But, verification allows you to add some more information and be ready to edit this information if it ever changes.

You can verify your local addresses and business information with both companies by creating accounts, inputting your information and verifying via a phone call or snail mail.

Google Local Business Center – Help page

Yahoo Local Listings

It’s a good idea to include targeted words in your entry, so that more people can find your listing if they search for generics.

Other places you can get free local listings include:

CitySearch.com – MSN partners with Citysearch for local search information, and CitySearch has a free basic listing.

AskCity – Ask.com’s map/local search, if your company is now showing up you have to e-mail their customer service to get added.

YellowPages.com – Large online local directory site that also includes city guides and advertising solutions. Basic listings are free.

Local.com – Online yellow pages and search engine that offers a free listing for businesses.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is considered a very controversial piece of legislation. While I do not personally support some of the law, I have taken advantage of sending DMCA takedown notices when one of my other blogs had posts lifted verbatim and republished without my permission.

When someone steals content and publishes on it on a free publishing system such as Google’s blogger, you can contact the hosting company to have them remove the infringing materials.

Here is a sample DMCA takedown notice I put together by seeing some other examples on the web.

Subject: DMCA/Copyright Infringement Notice

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing to you as an agent of your company or website sole owner of copyright to articles written on your website.

A website hosted by your company on publishing system having the host name “hostname“ and the IP address , infringes upon our exclusive rights in a number of copyrighted works. The copyrighted work at issue is the text/video/audio/etc that appears where you publish and has been published without authorization at the URL and IP address indicated.

url of offending site

The above referenced URLs provide, without authorization, partial text of copyrighted works produced and owned by . Below, please find details regarding the infringing URL, and original URL for each of these copyrighted works.

offending URL
Owner’s (Our) URL: your URL
(repeat..)

All of the listed infringements were observed between timestamp and timestamp

Please remove the referenced material from your service at once, and take other appropriate action against the account holder to prevent future infringement.

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, this letter serves as actual notice of infringement in the event of legal proceedings. I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted material described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Please contact me promptly to confirm the action you have taken.

Regards,
your details

If you are sending your DMCA notice to Blogger, as I did, Google makes you fax your notice instead of using e-mail. I’m not sure why this is as Yahoo, MS and others accept e-mailed DMCA takedown notices.

One of the best places to get a sandwich in Richmond, Virginia is Padow’s Hams and Deli, which first opened in Richmond during 1936.

This is their new storefront at Willow Lawn.

I love a good sandwich almost as much as I love a good burrito. This sandwich is Virginia honey ham and oven roasted turkey breast on wheat toast, with some hot peppers of course.

This LCD I bought in December has improved my quality of life probably more than any other purchase I’ve made in recent memory. I have to use an old CRT sometimes at one of my job sites, and it is driving me mad.

You can check out the specs here.