Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Mapspam now a Global Phenom
Martijn Beijk is reporting on his blog, Local Search, that Mapspam on Google is now cropping up in Europe. He notes that I have become infamous in my vendetta against Mapspam and battering Google in the process.
I like to think of it rather as love taps. To me Local offers incredible possibilities and can be of huge service to end users and small business people alike. But to realize that potential it needs to be real. The standard that Google has used to measure web pages for search results has been relevance. The standard for Local to be useful is not just relevance but  truthfulness. That is a high standard indeed.
In my read of the market, Google is the one player that can make this work, but to do so they need to embrace the higher standards needed in Local. If I seem to be battering them, its because I think that they can and hopefully will do better.Â
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
2 Comments
Seems something bad always has to ruin something good and when this little devious trick occurs, it spreads like wildfire! We commend Google for fighting back though!
Hey Brick, thanks for posting.
Yes abuse of the “commons” does seem to spread quickly when money is involved.
Certainly Google is concerned about Mapspam and I am glad that they are taking a proactive role in fighting it.
But the caveats I see are:
1)Google’s response has been erratic and slow. Sometimes they respond immediately, sometimes they don’t respond at all. Sometimes they remove by hand, sometimes not. So it leaves a hanging feeling about what and why…
2)it is not clear what is mapspam from their perspective and they have left things up for months that I believe should have been removed.
3)Are they in fact working towards the standard of truth or is relevance still their benchmark. Because long haul I fear that the standard of relevance will be goal rather than truthfulness. I am hoping otherwise but only by speaking up now can we have even a small influence on the product of tomorrow.
I for one am hoping that local turns out not to be just an alternative avenue for shucksterism.
Mike
Comments for this post are closed.