Google is notorious for starting something then quickly abandoning it with little notice. Such is the case with Google Tags. Just when I started getting used to the idea of Tags for local listing I get this message from Google.

Dear Google Places user, At Google, we’re always working to innovate and improve ways for small businesses to get online and reach more customers. At times, though, we have to decide where to focus our efforts and which technologies we expect will yield the most benefit to users and businesses like you in the long run. In that spirit, we are retiring Google Tags for all users on April 29, 2011. No action is required on your part, and your Places account and listing will continue to work as usual. Effective today, no new tags can be created, but all active tags will keep running to the end of April for free. In your Places account, you’ll be able to see billing history until July 31st. If your tag is active, performance data will be available from now until May 31st. Historical performance data of inactive tags will be available in your dashboard starting May 2nd until May 31st. To learn more about this change and other ways to promote your business, please see our blog post and our Help Center. Thank you for trying Google Tags. Sincerely, The Google Places Team

I swear just yesterday I was telling one of my clients that he should give Google Tags and Google Boost a try as we wait for his new site to be indexed by the search engines. I guess we can always move the $25 that we were spending into his Google boost budget. Let’s see if they hold on to that or if Google Boost will be another project that will be quickly abandoned.

Adam Chronister is co-founder of Enleaf, an award winning Web Design and Internet Marketing Firm. You can find him on Facebook Facebook and Twitter.

April 21, 2011in Internet MarketingBy Enleaf