Google has been working hard recently at limiting the ability of bulk uploaders to spam the Maps Index. Their efforts have significantly cut the frequency of reports of large scale abuse.
However it appears that the new Yellow Pages are out and more than fingers walked on over to Google. Massive amounts of Remote Call Forwarding numbers and associated businesses have made their way into the Maps index. If the counts at the bottom of Google Maps are to be trusted at all, the numbers are well into the tens of thousands and could be over a hundred thousand entries. Regardless it is a lot of spam.
Cathy Rulloda describes the process thusly: “While the ultimate blame lies with the businesses who willingly providing false information to deceive consumers about their actual locations, the cloaking behind RCF numbers – which are then picked up by data providers like the Yellow Pages publishers, assigned zip codes (if no street addressees are provided), and then treated as trusted local businesses by Google – makes their entre’ into Maps easy.”
These records initially are listed in Google without any street address and a round pin. They are much more frequently shown in rural environments where there is less competition and fewer highly authoritative listings.
Florist Concierge by Wire - 20,175 listings
Flowers By Grower – 2,325 listings
Florist Telesales Directory - 5,502 listings
Flower Shops Directory- 3919 listings
This one is impressive
Florist Directory - 102,855 listings
This count likely has a large number of dupes and it may not be totally meaningful but as far as the eye could see they were all obviously the same company listed in the index.
Initially this sort of spam has the most impact in rural searches as the listings, without address do not have high authority and do not rank well in competitive areas. For example, this rural search turned up 7 of 10 of these listings in the Ten Pack. If these listings are allowed to be claimed via phone verification, it is conceivable, that like the locksmith spam, it could impact more urban and competitive searches.
Mike -
Thanks for the coverage on this story. To further illustrate how the spammer is using IYPs to enter G Maps, look at a query for the phone number for the first Florist Directory listing, ‘Cornelius Florist Directory’. The sole result is yellowpages.com.
Perhaps G Maps puts an emphasis on ‘freshness’, so these new bogus listings get pushed out live quickly. (AFAICT the spammer listings have yet to appear in either Yahoo Local/Maps or Live’s Local listings.) But this particular case of spam would be difficult to detect via a filter since every listing has a unique local or toll-free phone number.
In the locksmith thread, one of the commenters suggested the YPs and IYPs be contacted about this issue. Believe me, it’s been tried in the floral industry – by both state and national associations – for more than a decade (in the case of print directories).
I’m only aware of a few cases where it’s been successful, and it’s usually because a state law has teeth and financially penalizes the YPs for publishing the deceptive listings. Most states do not have such penalties and the YP publishers have far better lobbyists than the local florists.
Cathy
Comment by Cathy (34 comments) — March 2, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
The Yellowpages.com listing also showed another “DBA” that I had not searched on and it also showed an interesting mix of 800 & Local numbers:
Cornelius Florist Concierge
Cornelius, NC 28031
(704) 765-4234
Cornelius Florist Directory
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 533-0980
Cornelius Florist Telesales Directory
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 860-6434
Cornelius Flower Shops
Cornelius, NC 28031
(704) 314-4425
Cornelius Flower Shops Directory
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 877-3203
Cornelius Flowers by Grower
Cornelius, NC 28031
(888) 291-6282
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (737 comments) — March 2, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
Right. And all those other listings have been populated into G Maps, too.
Note that the sole citation for each is yellowpages.com.
Comment by Cathy (34 comments) — March 2, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
Mike:
Great work. I didn’t realize that Google Maps relied so heavily upon Yellow Pages.com. Hmmmm.
Comment by panzermike (130 comments) — March 3, 2009 @ 12:45 am
Thanks to you and Cathy for bringing additional attention to this issue – I did report the original info I found per your reply in the Google Group. Hopefully the spam team will look into this further.
Comment by Steve Pellham (1 comments) — March 5, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
Steve
Thanks for stopping by.
As of yet, Google has not done anything about this instance. If I were you, I would repost into the Google Maps Spam thread.
Mike
Comment by Mike (1029 comments) — March 5, 2009 @ 2:20 pm
Looks like Google may be getting into the RCF business themselves with Google Voice: https://www.google.com/voice/about
Comment by Art (14 comments) — March 12, 2009 @ 10:59 am
I’m wondering if Google will be getting into the RCF business themselves. This article gives an overview of the Google Voice service soon to be released to the masses.
http://searchengineland.com/google-voice-next-generation-telco-16904
Comment by Art (14 comments) — March 12, 2009 @ 11:45 am