{"id":3881,"date":"2009-06-16T14:07:30","date_gmt":"2009-06-16T18:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2009-06-16T14:15:29","modified_gmt":"2009-06-16T18:15:29","slug":"google-maps-how-do-you-fit-5609-characters-into-google-lbc-description-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/16\/google-maps-how-do-you-fit-5609-characters-into-google-lbc-description-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Maps: Spammers find a way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-3884\" href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/16\/google-maps-how-do-you-fit-5609-characters-into-google-lbc-description-field\/picture-102\/\"><\/a>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 <a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/10\/google-maps-category-mapspam\/\">legitimately have 5 categories<\/a>. Another is that the description of your business can only contain 200 characters (about 30 words).<\/p>\n<p>One then has to marvel at the craftiness of the spammers that manage to overcome these limits, one way or another. In this <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.ca\/maps?hl=en&amp;q=toronto+locksmith&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=43.7151,-79.383602&amp;spn=0.105835,0.125999&amp;z=13&amp;iwloc=A&amp;iwd=1&amp;cid=835697865030426770&amp;dtab=1\">example of Toronto Locksmith Spam<\/a> (sent along by PureShear) this &#8220;business owner&#8221; managed to fit\u00a05609 characters under the details tab by keyword stuffing the\u00a0Additional Details fields in the LBC ad nauseum. That amounts to 787 more words than is seen in the typical listing as most listers don&#8217;t add very many\u00a0Additional Details.<\/p>\n<p>The spammer managed to secure a 3rd place listing in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.ca\/search?hl=en&amp;q=toronto+locksmith&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;sa=N&amp;tab=lw\">very spammy Toronto Locksmith 10 Pack <\/a>results with but one citation. Clearly, in any category where the spammers are currently operating, an honest lister doesn&#8217;t have a chance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/picture-102.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3884\" title=\"picture-102\" src=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/picture-102.png\" alt=\"picture-102\" width=\"520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/picture-102.png 880w, https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/picture-102-136x150.png 136w, https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/picture-102-450x496.png 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-maps-google-local"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3908,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/3908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}