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I think both options are viable, and it comes down to your demographic split in analytics.

If the majority of your audience in English-speaking, then the best option would be option #2. This eliminated an extra step and gives the majority of your users what they want, faster.

If there's a more even split in the traffic for languages you write for, a landing page to decide on a language may be more useful.

It's also possible to auto-detect the language and automatically direct users to the appropriate page, so you might want to consider that as an option as well.

You need to have the name of the person who wrote the content on the web page. Google is trying to find the name of the author, but can't, they are only seeing the company name. Putting the name of the author on the page and making it a link to his/her G+ profile can help define the author. There is also the rel=author tag, and a URL parameter you can use, but usually one will do.

Hi DJReason,

If you can manage to not have a pool of numbers for SEO traffic, my solution above will work. By using a script that only fires when certain parameters hit, it allows you to only use one number for non-parametered URLs, so search engine bots will only see the one number. Then you use that number during citation building, and you're golden... at least from that perspective.

Usually it's at /locations.kml

The actual URL to the KML file is in the geositemap. You may not notice when you go to the URL, it's not an actual web page, it's a file that is downloaded when you enter the URL.

Once the file is downloaded, open it with a txt editor. You should see your company's information and coordinates.

You can try, but it'll probably be more a hassle than it's worth. Even if you're in the right, imagine syncing up all citations with your G+ account, then then Google decides to change your business name on their own, or they unverify you until you change the name. Sure, you might be able to talk a Google rep into reverfiying... until the next guy sees it and does the same thing.

Even if you're in the right. This might be an uphill battle not worth fighting.

Any word on if Google is using those reviews less in the local ranking algorithm?

I have a client who has an average 4 stars on most sites, but had a much lower score on Yelp. Last night, he spiked in maps for some big keywords, almost like Yelp wasn't being considered anymore.