Last week in the Maps Forums and again today as a posting in a comment in Google Maps vs Locksmith Spammers: Spammers winning? Locksmiths have noted that Google is apparently building system wide impediments to spamming.

Boruch Fishman, an SEO in the Locksmith industry noted:

Recently Google has been slamming locksmith spam so hard it appears to me that the situation is going to the other extreme. I work with locksmiths in my role as a search engine submitter. Today I talked to a locksmith in Arlington Virginia. He told me he has worked out of his house for a year. His company is called Security Locksmith. From what he told me, he is serving people in his local area. He uses a local phone number. He admits that he registered his company on Google, using a trade name – 24 hour emergency locksmith. His listing was then flagged. He changed his name back to his company name, and began taking out keywords. He subsequently found that his listing was flagged, until he entirely removed the word locksmith from any text field in the Google application. Since locksmith is actually part of his legally registered name, he shouldn’t be flagged.

I had another locksmith and call me about the same problem. I was told he also had a brick and mortar business in Nashville. However, this man had a toll free number. I tried to register his business and it was flagged. I then took out any term with locksmith, and the listing was finally changed to waiting for submission. I then decided to test the system. I just added back the word “emergency mobile locksmith,” and the listing was again flagged. Later I found out from the man that he really lived in another State, and had people that would be working for him in Nashville. While Google would be happy to ferret out this out of state poacher, how could they really differentiate this man from a brick and mortar locksmith?

In the Google forum, the following exchange transpired and was notable in that a Google employeed identified Puresheer’s answer as definitive:

aaaprolocksmith

I opened up an account, brick and mortar local location, local service area, locksmith service in Nashville. The account wsa flagged and so I started stripping out keywords and categories until it was changed to “awaiting next update,” which means the content was approved. Then I added back the one category “24/7 mobile locksmith,” and the account was again flagged. I took out “24/7,” I took out “mobile,” I took out “locksmith,” I stripped that account to the bare bones and had to finally change the name before it again went back to being “awaiting next update.”

What is so bad about “24/7 mobile locksmith service”

All answers

Puresheer Level 2 6/25/09

Mike CH (Google Employee) says this answers the question:

@aaaprolocksmith

This term “Mobile  Locksmith” was one of the firsts that Google blocked/ flagged while one using it. The reason- spammers! 1. you can thanks Usafe (see first reference below) that spammed Gmaps very strongly with this term in their categories & additional titles to their listings. 2. you can also thank the mega spammers from Florida (or wherever they are from) about the wide use they made with this term in ALL USA & Canada (see second reference below- Organic results, see all the first pages – most of them belong to the same spammy company). BTW- the term Emergency Locksmith is starting to be flagged as well; that happened in the last week.

My suggestion- don’t use  the flagged terms; the Locksmith industry is under the spot light & you don’t want Google to investigate your listing more than they are doing now (for Locksmiths).

If this is the only ‘bump’ you encountered with Google in the Locksmith field- you are in a good position!

References:

[1]	Usafe- Mobile Locksmith(Web) maps.google.com

[2]	MObile Locksmith’s sites(Web) www.google.com

Earlier this month, Glenn Younger, a locksmith in the San Diego market who tracks unlicensed locksmiths in California, noted that although the number of fraudulent unlicensed listings in Maps had declined

… in my town (San Diego) have reduced from over 3,000 to now under 1,000. The map spammers are still in the entire 10 pak and well represented, but now they are only 75% of the listings. Google users are still more likely to see or find a scammer but Google is doing something to make a difference.

Obviously Google is working on the Locksmith spam problem and because of publicity is perhaps making more of an effort in this regard than the other search engines. They seem to be using a combination of flagging listings in the LBC and alogrythmically submerging from the listings. In typical Google fashion, it is without much input or clear error messages on their part but their response in the forum was refreshing.

The difficult work of making Maps a more honest place has begun. In my last interview with Carter Maslan he told me:

Its like getting a vaccine. It makes you resilient long term. All the spam you are seeing are short term things. We are tackling them and they will be exponetially cured by exposure to the spam. We are working on spam abatement as a top priorty. This will allow us to provide an even better experience.

That all being said, if you need a locksmith I still wouldn’t use Google Maps just yet to find one. Establish a relationship with a local craftsman well ahead of time so that in a time of emergency you know who to call and don’t need to rely on the as yet still compromised Map index.