E17: New Local SEO Myth, Google ❤️'s Socials, & Humans vs AI

the podcast is BACK!

January 20, 2026

Claire and I are back with another episode of the Whitespark Local Update!

Today we talk about a new justification Google is pulling into the Local Pack and reminisce about the good ol’ days when we had all kinds of local justifications: Posts, Offers, Reviews, Websites, Services, Products.

Google gradually removed most of those, but now we’re starting to see a new justification-like tag pulled from social media content (first discovered by Valentina Vasileva on LinkedIn).

Google is clearly looking at your social profiles to better understand your business, which means:

  • Your socials need to be connected to your Google Business Profile.

  • You actually need to be active on them.

Claire and I also talk about:

  • Social profiles showing up in Search Console (Steve Toth)

  • 1-Minute-a-Day Strategy for Getting More Yelp Reviews (Phil Rozek)

  • Top digital marketing trends and predictions for 2026 (Phil Wilson)

  • Why many firms should stop competing on reviews (NearMedia, Gyi Tsakalakis)

  • The Google Business Profile 2-Hour Rule is a Myth (SterlingSky)

Watch the episode here 👇️

🎧 Or if you prefer listening, find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

If you’ve missed us over the last couple of weeks, we’d really appreciate a quick review on Apple Podcasts. It helps the show and means a lot to us 🙏

Darren