Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Adds Insult to Injury as They Enter the Google Hall of Shame in 2018
In late October I reported of widespread name abuse in the jewelry industry near Toronto. I even flagged it on Google thinking that it was so very obvious that even with their collective spam fighting head stuck so deeply into a dark, posterior orifice they would be able to correctly identify it and remove it.
Ah but I am ever the optimist.
My suggestion, despite all evidence and common sense, was NOT applied:
And the category is still rife with abuse:
© Copyright 2025 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
7 Comments
The same has happened to me. Out of curiosity Mike, what level Google Local Guide are you? Could it be a level issue?
I am a level 7 LG but this is one that if i had been a -10 should have come down.
I don’t see a problem with those GMB business names…
ya gotta put in all of those ‘helpful’ descriptive terms in the business name field, how else are jewelry stores supposed to compete with those darn honest and compliant jewelry stores?
my GMB name 😉
Andy Kuiper – EDMONTON SEO SERVICES EDMONTON INTERNET MARKETING CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION for EDMONTON & area COMPANY open M to F 9am to 6pm
Seriously though – I don’t understand how 1/3 of my GMB business name edits sit in a ‘being reviewed’ queue (or get declined) when it’s so blatantly obvious they are spamming. There are even lead gen people who are setting up post office box addresses and ranking in local (with fake reviews) SOMETHING has to be done – please help Google.
The problem is that Google doesn’t have the resources to fix this. They are just a small business doing their best to get by in a highly competitive industry. Do they even make more than 100 BILLION dollars in a year?
An easy bandaid approach, while Google is waiting for their team to magically fix this, would be to limit character length for the business name field, disallow symbols, dashes, emojis etc… and all caps. How hard could that be? Let those businesses that fall outside those parameters submit their exception requests and sit in the pending queue.
Or, how bout they simply SUSPEND all spammy listings they find – for 30 days (or until fixed). That would be so severe that Mike Blumenthal would blog about it – and then word will spread and this abuse will stop.
I’m a Level 8 guide, and mostly all of my points are from edits. Some spammy listings I edit over and over again. Google notifies me to say it is ‘fixed’, but then the GMB biz manager changes it back. Most listings that I edit have included their location in their name, but some just stuff their listing name with extra info as you showed in your example, Mike. And it annoys me when Google pass over my edits – i.e: ‘Not Applied’, when it is blatantly obvious that the listing in question is spammy.
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