Have you called the number? I assume that there really is such a business somewhere? Maybe not.

Here is the info you noted:
http://www.englishlanguageschoollondon.com

English Language School London
‎Address:
23 Villiers st
London, WC2 6ND, United Kingdom
020 7381 5070

Interestingly the domain is owned by:
nails and beauty academy
Flat 15
1 Vereker Road
london, london W14 9jp

Which shows two Google Maps listings:
Nails and Beauty Academy
- http://www.nailsandbeautyacademy.co.uk
100 Regent St, W1, London - +44 20 7381 5070
Directions and more »

Nails and Beauty Academy
- http://www.nailsandbeautyacademy.co.uk
Third floor, 1 Vereker Road, London - +44 20 7381 5070
1 review, directions, and more »

The second address is where the domain, EnglishLanguageSchool is registered. Both have the same phone number as the English Language School. Wonder how they answer the phone?

What is located at 100 Regent St.?

They also own the domain:www.the-englishschool.co.uk. The English School London has a listed address of:

Barons Court,
London W14 9JP
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7381 5070

They are all seem to be working under a name of Cavendish House Education and Training Academy. Although little could be found on that name.

First they give you English training then you get put to work doing nails. Sounds like a vertically integrated organization. Wonder what else they do.

Ah the web we weave.

What is your interest in this?

Mike

You couldn’t make it up!

See this post with MapsGuide: Google offers new solution for Mapspam removal: Goodoo where Jen said in response to this query from me:
2)Is there a clear statement of what is acceptable practice for bulk upload? If so where? I looked but could not find a simple summary of what was accetable practice and what wasn’t and what the consequences of unaccpetable practice would be.

No, there isn’t. We try to be nice and keep things flexible by staying out of the legal repercussions of creating a statement that would confine our users to specific uses of Google Maps. In the future, we may have to revisit the question of whether or not we need a statement such as the one you were looking for.

The same applies to a single listing. There is no clear guidance.

Think it is time for them to revisit, eh?

Mike

The worst part about the example is that they’re not local. They’ve chosen addresses which are right near the centroid and are using 800#s.

Signature Forum’s business address is in the Chicago are which makes it complete Spam. If you follow through you’ll see they’re merely conversion pages, “Call this #”, “Fill out this form”.

This is the most egregious example I’ve seen — where the addresses and other information are purely fictitious, but there are plenty of others which are hyper-local and keyword rich.

What I wonder when it comes to a real business, say a local dentist who registers additional locations with key phrase rich names like “Teeth Whitening” and “Dental Implants” is, is it explicitly against the G Local TOS? Or is it just disingenuous?

Will