Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Maps: Spammers find a way
The Google Local Business Center has a number of limits that it imposes on mere mortals and small business people. For example you can only legitimately have 5 categories. Another is that the description of your business can only contain 200 characters (about 30 words).
One then has to marvel at the craftiness of the spammers that manage to overcome these limits, one way or another. In this example of Toronto Locksmith Spam (sent along by PureShear) this “business owner” managed to fit 5609 characters under the details tab by keyword stuffing the Additional Details fields in the LBC ad nauseum. That amounts to 787 more words than is seen in the typical listing as most listers don’t add very many Additional Details.
The spammer managed to secure a 3rd place listing in the very spammy Toronto Locksmith 10 Pack results with but one citation. Clearly, in any category where the spammers are currently operating, an honest lister doesn’t have a chance.
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Comments
24 Comments
Wow! That looks like some of the page titles/title tags I see in real estate web sites that rank well. Maybe a little more overdone, but not much. 🙂
Pretty aggressive tagging. Does it do anything good in the Real Estate world?
Every conceivable job type, postal code, town name highway exit from one end of Toronto to the other. The problem in Maps is that it seems to work.
See this search for Car Trunk Opening Hurontario St Toronto Ca
Oh my gosh! That’s astonishing. I’m not aware of anything in the guidelines that prohibits that. But, wow, how ugly.
@Miriam
You are right there is nothing in the guidelines and it is ugly. But it does return the long tail searches as noted above. The only consolation would be that not too many folks ever get that deep into maps.
From the perspective of the business owner, rather than the SEM or SEO I can say with certitude that there is an incredible benefit to picking up an incredible volume and variety of long tail searches. I’ve managed to do that…with a fair amount of this volume having a legitimate relevance to the main focus of my business(es) and services.
On the other hand I don’t do it in the outright spammy way done by the locksmith industry…nor do I have multitudes of maps showing for all sorts of wierd phrases like the search phrase Mike used above… Car trunk opening Hurontario St Toronto Ca.
In google that turns up fascinating results. There is a 3 pac. The bottom two sites in the 3 pac are the same business. I only wonder if the top one is the same owner using a different phone number…or simply a competitive locksmith spammer.
Also interesting in the google.com search are the first two organic listings which represent free web pr pieces…similarly spammy for this incredibly long tail search.
Astute business people realize they work. If you get enough of these long tail organic searches it adds up to significant value.
Do the same incredibly long tail search Car trunk opening Hurontario St Toronto Ca in Yahoo and MSN/Bing….and you get gobbledygook search results.
Frankly, which is better for this incredibly obscure search phrase? Google.com’s response which is to both create an eye catching atttention grabbing map with visual prominance and authority…and then add the top 2 results in organic search…that are pure examples of WEB PR BS or gobbledygook search results as in Yahoo or MSN/Bing that have no relevance whatsoever.
In my mind….neither response is great…but clearly giving undue prominance to businesses that are out to scam people….(the notorious) locksmiths is clearly not an acceptable response.
By highlighting this blatently manipulative methodology…Google.com alone enables and reinforces the spammer. Remember these are also businesses being investigated by authorities for ripping off people.
Frankly if the search engines come up with horrible responses maybe searchers will input 2nd or 3rd more meaningful search phrases that can turn up more meaningfull results.
At one point in search engine history, Google.com began to overtake all the other search engines in market share. The basic reason was that the quality of its search algorithm’s turned up better results.
Now though, Maps.google.com turns up incredibly spammy results.
What is worse, Maps.google.com results… especially when it is highlighted in Google.com results with either a unique authoritative onebox, or in the original example above…some spammy narrow 3 pac…is conveying bad information to consumers.
Google needs to address this issue differently.
Change Maps. Stop showing rediculous narrow unique authoritative maps. Stop creating maps for search phrases that are incredibly long tail, or not representative of a generic product/service search.
Stop distorting the marketplace with authoritative presentations on the search page….that distort the market place and mislead consumers.
SEO companies seem to do this. Look at “seattle seo” and you see seomoz appear three times (3 of ten listings) using three different addresses.
Hey, that’s indeed the most spammy business I have seen in Google maps. Thanks for taking this into public. Your post live just after few days Google revised their quality guidelines to tackle spam. LOL 🙂
Did anybody besides me notice that this companies rankings suck?
Funny….and that’s not the worst of it 😉
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
yup, the problem is that stuff like this works. what’s a nice guy to do?
@Mike
My team & I just figured out how to stuff keywords in that section (as I wrote you in the email I sent you last night).
Do you think we should go off line with that & (AGAIN!!) save some headaches to the Maps Guides or just to post it here?
@puresheer. I’d publish it. The greater likelyhood over time is that when one lights a public fire under google and the maps.google group the “fix” is quicker than when one doesn’t light a fire under them.
I recall that on one issue from over a year ago. It seems like nothing changes.
Regardless of the spammer tactics….I think the bigger issue is that google is emphasizing maps and visibility when it should be de emphasizing visibility while it fixes the many problems.
I did a second incredibly narrow long tail search for locksmiths in toronto using Mckinley street as opposed to the way Mike did it w/ Hurontario street.
My first question is…why does a big 10 pac map show. In reality that narrow search doesn’t seem to merit an incredible and powerful display of businesses. Then you look inside the 10pac and a couple of the locksmith urls are duplicated and they have different phone numbers. Its a joke.
Underneath the 10 pac the first organic listing is this ultimately spammy free web pr listing that has a spammy locksmith name and what looks to be every street in the city listed.
Yahoo and MSN/BING don’t show that stuff.
Right now…Google is the king of spam when it comes to Local. Its not even close.
So I would publish the stuff. It doesn’t appear that google fixes things until it hits the light of day.
@Puresheer
Send it along offline, if you don’t mind
@Craig
Prey that Google gets it squared away?
@BobtheBuilder
Thanks
@Gene C
How so?
@Mercy Livi
Lets hope that Google proactively enforces those guidelines! But it does appear that they need to add one addendum to cover this.
@Crill
One presumes that they have 3 locations, no?
I had a SEO company who was trying to get my business stuff my maps listing with keywords. When I go into my listing, I cannot change anything. What bothers me most about this is that my maps listing has no content describing me, just keywords. I want to make the changes back, but cannot. Any suggestions?
The only way is to get control of the original LBC account in which the data was entered
@Mike, @earlpearl
An offline instance will be sent tomorrow to Mike.
Thanks, guys !
[…] There have been numerous reports over the last six months of unclaimed listings being hijacked by map spammers where an established local businesses listing is “claimed” and then the listing is pointed to […]
[…] Google Maps: Spammers find a way, Mike Blumenthal […]
LOL, here is one that takes the “cake”.
I created a google map with before and after pics of my work.
Naturally, I name the files tile-roof-cleaning-tampa-fl jpeg 1.05 am 2-3 2009, etc.
Well, a local competitor created a listing using one of my file names as his “company name”
He claimed no knowledge of this listing, LOL
here is the complaint thread, Google has done Nothing.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/maps/thread?tid=2465b58cd988576f&hl=en
He is using several different names, phoney keyword loaded addresses, etc.
Worst of all, my stolen contentis still being associated with his url !
Chris
This is much more likely to be an artifact of google’s clustering technology. Since a November upgrade, there are a number of cases of “conflated” listings where citations etc from one show up on another totally different listing particularly when there is confusion about the company name.
Thanks Mike!
I am still trying to figure out if a Local Seo Company is behind all this, or it was the local competitor who “thought up” using one of MY JPEG File Names as his “Company Name” to intentionally confuse Google ?
I have called twice to this Local SEO Company, they said they would call back, and never did.
I find it “very interesting” that my competitor is using 2 phony addresses, one of which is a phony address used by a local mold remediation company he represents!
I even called this mold remediation company, to inform them someone was using their address.
The guy said “Oh, that is a phoney address the SEO Company TOLD me to use”.
What, if anything, can I do about this Mike ?
@Chris
It has taken a number of months but filing a “report a problem” on the info bubble in Maps has resulted in the removal of spam in markets that I cater to. It takes too long but it did seem to eventually work.
Doing keyword stuffing on anything is so short lived. I have no idea why anyone would waste their time doing it. If you have a SMB you need to really plan for long term, this is type of strategy is so short term.
Matthew Hunt, they do it because it Works.
As seen by my previous posts, and Mike Blumenthals response, it takes forever, IF Google ever does anything about it.
And, when and IF Google does anything, these spammers “blame it on a Bad SEO Company” and beg for re inclusion!
Or, worse yet, they abandon THAT URL, and start all over again with a new one.
I liked the poster that said “Google was built on providing good information”
or something to that effect ?
Well, Google is being manipulated by spammers with tese Local Listings.
It used to take a well seasoned web site with lots of backlinks to be in business, not anymore, thanks to Googles dumb decision to make sure we all don’t get a cold Pizza ?
A Crook can be in businees on TOP of the local search in days.
Actually, Internet devotees like ourselves get penalized in some ways, for even posting on Blogs like these I believe.
Think about it ?
When Google crawls these Blogs, there are SEO guys in timbucktoo, and wine makers in California, LOL
Hardly relevant to a person where I am at.
Make you a deal Mike Blumenthal ?
I will post away on your Blog, but ya gotta make it relevant to what I do,, and where I do it, LOL
I know that is a bit extreme, but I am almost afraid to post anywhere on the Internet NOT relevant or Local to me anymore, lest Google find an “excuse” to shove me further down the local listings, in favor of NEW Google Local Spammers with zero Internet posts.
I will jump for joy when I wake up one day to read this Headline.
“Google Puts An End To Google Local Listings”
IMHO, it is out of control, and spammers know it.
Poor Google has created a Monster, and I believe unintentionally.
Google Local Spammers know Google dont have the manpower to constantly police them.
Now I can imagine what the old Americal West must have been like ?
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