Google?s Locksmith Spam Problem Hits The New York Times

[djbaxter]

Google?s Locksmith Spam Problem Hits The New York Times
by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land
July 9, 2011

The New York Times? interest in the underbelly of SEO continues today with an article that details Google?s struggle to fight locksmith spam in Google Places. While not as deep as the Times? recent articles on J.C. Penney?s SEO tactics and floral industry SEO, it nevertheless casts Google ? again ? as unable to keep up with the tide of SEO spam.

Today?s article covers locksmith spam in Seattle ? more specifically, the search query ?emergency locksmith Seattle.? The image {see source article} shows what that search looks like now, but when the article was written, the Times says that seven local listings were showing ? and none of them were actually locksmiths based in Seattle.

They are phone banks, typically set up in far-off places, often in other countries. Call them and they?ll dispatch a locksmith. Some are legitimate, but others may all too often do shoddy work and/or charge two or three times the estimate.
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The Times explains that they create fake listings and/or use the real addresses of other entities (like government buildings) to get around Google?s local listing guidelines, then get insane amounts of local citations/references to improve their rankings.

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