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I was going to write about the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal, as I have a good deal left to say about it (I think). I suppose for now, however, I should leave my thoughts over at SEO Theory, where I wrote Microsoft and Yahoo! antitrust concerns.

I also gave some thought to how to increase your Bing search traffic but obviously I wrote about that last year. So I was coming up a bit dry for ideas and then thought, “Well, let’s take a look at local search”.

Hm. That’s been written to death, hasn’t it?

Still, I took a look at a random query on one of the major search engines and noticed something odd: the same address and business appeared in multiple listings for different Web sites. Oh, surely it could not be THAT simple, could it?

Alas! It CAN be that simple. Someone has created a lot of Web sites for the same business and submitted them to all three major search engines’ local search directories. How spammy.

I scanned Google’s guidelines and could not find anything forbidding the practice. Apparently, it’s okay to submit as many legitimate Web sites to the local directories as you can create. Hm.

Does that mean the search engines don’t catch on to the trick? I don’t know. I found mixed results. Perhaps there are some filters in place.

So if you want to place the microsite network game with Local Search, I would suggest the following guidelines may help you stay out of trouble:

Things To Do For Multiple Listings In Local Search

1. Create sites that have unique functions and content
2. Use a distinctive address and telephone number for each site (see note below)
3. Use a distinctive title/business name for each site (legal DBA usage only)
4. Assign each site to unique categories

Things Not To Do For Multiple Listings In Local Search

1. Do not use identical copy on every site
2. Do not redirect any sites
3. Do not use false or misleading language in your listing

Distinctive address and telephone number – Okay, if you only have one business location, how do you do this? The multiple telephone numbers should be easy. I leave that to you. Creating a distinctive address is more of a challenge. You could, I suppose, designate different offices if you own or lease the entire property. That is, include “Suite 100, Suite 200″ but I’m not sure what the U.S. Postal Service would make of that. Maybe incorporate a department name.

Distinctive Business Name – Many companies do business as one or more entities that are distinct from their legal or incorporated name. If you can reasonably do this, it might be worth the effort. But keep in mind you may cause consumer confusion — and you cannot sue yourself if you screw up your own brand value.

Why create a microsite network in the first place?

Clearly, someone is doing this for the sake of obtaining multiple listings in local search. However, there are more useful/legitimate reasons to create multiple sites. Here are a few. The more of these reasons your business matches, the more likely you’ll be okay in the long run.

• Your business offers multiple products or services distinctive enough to warrant their own brand flagship sites
• Your business offers multiple products or services through as multiple DBAs (such as after mergers and buyouts)
• Your business offers products and services to very specific markets with distinctive terms
• Your business manages pay-per-click tracking through the use of multiple sites

I’m not suggesting that you dilute your PPC tracking by mingling Local Search traffic with PPC traffic, but you can create PPC landing pages on secondary, non-indexable URLs and still use the root URLs for your microsite domains in local and organic search.

Many people in the SEO industry oppose the use of microsites for small businesses. I’m not arguing that microsites work in every situation. I’m just saying that if you already have a microsite strategy in place, you may be able to leverage it to help increase your local search visibility.

It’s something to think about, but don’t be surprised if the search engines are thinking about it, too. Just because someone else seems to be getting away with an apparently spammy tactic doesn’t mean you will. Think about the return on your investment and get the most bang for your site development buck. Create value, not confusion.