2022
Good Morning Local Guides & Map makers!
I've been noticing a particular phenomenon on Google Maps that is becoming prevalant to the point of being problematic. Catching up on the forums here, it appears you all may be seeing the same issue. Here's a story to explain.
I'm a pretty avid Hiker I'm my region (San Diego) and besides super-local businesses, I find myself most often correcting the Map and submitting content to municipal parks, open space regions marked with trailheads, etc. Yesterday, NPR did a radio special that discussed one of San Diego''s lesser known parks (manzanita canyon) and I vIsited the listing later in the evening to check it out. What I discovered was that the park had been "photo-stuffed."
Essentially the listing was filled with Nature photos that had nothing to do with the park itself, or even San Diego. The Giveaway was seeing Half-Dome from Yosemite National Forest as the cover shot of this tiny park. I flagged all the inappropriate photos. There were several offenders involved.
I don't know if those responsible were looking to pad their view counts, take advantage of some SEO gimmick or what. What I do know is that this sort of thing is becoming more pervasive. The thing is no one cared about that park before the NPR story, and that's what I think we need to be aware of here.
Anytime a particular place, especially one we might not know very well, shows up in the media or benefits from some other spasm of public interest, we should probably expect the spammers to be all over it. In particular, relatively unprotected listings like parks and such.
Anyway, that's all I got for now, but if you're in SD, keep an eye out!
I've got a meet-up coming your way soon! Cheers
