Google not Good Enough in Controlling Local Map Spam

Google Map Spam? – What would give you a call about this? Google map is the single most powerful marketing tool for the small business owners and some companies are taking mislead and spamming all over Google Map. This act of black hat technique has been identified by many bloggers and blogged now and then from 2008 and Google claims that they take regular measures and such activities would be taken care of. But it is not the case. Are they good enough in controlling the Local Map Spam?

One day, I was doing some research and I queried Google with the term SEO Madurai, and discovered someone then registered all these “fake” companies in Google Maps. I looked up the web design aka SEO Company to see who does this sort of thing because I was curious. For my surprise most of the pages are in under construction. They have created three different listing under three titles (keyword targeted) and gained all three listing in onebox listing for the same company. The below picture will provide your clear view on what I was talking about.

The same continues in UK market as well. Few days before, one of my good friend and colleague Immanuel Ruby found the same when she was working for her client. The moving and storage industry “moving storage orlando fl” would give you the shocking picture. Out of ten onebox results nine listing has been hijacked by the company called “PubicStorage”. Each business deserves to own a single place in onebox but due to spamming the entire picture changes.

This is what, Google have to say about their Google Maps ranking and algorithm.

All Google search results are based primarily on relevance, and Google Maps listings are no different. Google Maps ranks business listings based on their relevance to the search terms entered, along with geographic distance (where indicated) and other factors. Sometimes our search technology decides that a business that’s farther away from your location is more likely to have what you’re looking for than a business that’s closer.

Google Maps and the Local Business Center are a free service, so there’s no way to request or pay for a better ranking. We also can’t provide additional details about our ranking algorithm. We do our best to keep the details of the algorithm confidential in order to make the ranking system as fair as possible for everyone.

If the above claim on relevancy that determines the ranking in Google Maps as well, is there no other relevant business listing available in “Orlando” area for “Moving and Storage” industry? Google dominates the search industry for their search relevancy and best user experience. To keep this going, Google should keep an eye on such thing and make the spammers away for Google maps and other Google services. If you see your competition abusing Google Maps by entering multiple listings for their business, you can report them to Google privately, without fear of retaliation by reporting spam here.