How to recognise a spammy business listing

[Anonymous]

Hi guys, I found a terrible example of a business in my city that's taking advantage of a loophole in Google My Business to gain an unfair advantage on their competitors. Thought I'd share it here so we can identify fake listings more easily and stop them from stealing customers from legitimate businesses.

The business has only one real office, but I discovered they've set up at least 17 business listings at different addresses across Melbourne. Every listing has the same phone number and website, but because the business names are all unique (generic names like 'Local Plumbing Service', 'Broken Pipes Melbourne') they are not filtered out of the results. To add to this, because the fake locations are spread all over the city, this business is able to rank very well in search results no matter where their customers are searching from. This is because Maps favours businesses that are physically close to you when you perform a search.

I've marked all of these locations as 'does not exist' and hope to see them taken down soon. In the meantime here's how you can identify a fake/spammy listing:

• Is the location a house? All businesses on Google Maps (except for Service Area businesses) have to accept walk-in customers during business hours. If you see a private residence on street view it's probably an employees house and should be removed unless you can visit them in person.
• Does the business name match the website or is it generic? Generic business names usually contain keywords so they rank well in search results, however businesses must use their real name with no tag lines or descriptors at the end.
• Can you find multiple listings using the same phone number (usually a 1800 or 1300 number)? If these locations aren't listed on their website they may not be real.
• Is the business address a suite in an office tower? Plumbers, electricians and locksmiths are rarely based in a high rise building in the middle of the CBD, but some bad actors in these industries rent a 'virtual office' in these locations so they can pretend to be based in the centre of town.
• Do the images show a real place that matches the business type, or is it simply a logo/product photo?

Anyone seen a similar example of one business with a whole network of fake locations? Did Google remove it after you flagged it?

[Flash · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous,

I applaud you for you spam fighting.

Unfortunately, if this network is GMB claimed, it might make it more likely that your edits will be denied.

Even if approved, the spammer will likely be able to convince GMB support to reinstate the features.

Feel free to try to delete each place on your own, but you might need to have this escalated if it is unsuccessful or the features return.  If that is the case please post the details of the spam so that a moderator can escalate it.  The Mapping Your World forum would be the best location to post such requests, and you can feel free to tag myself in any such posts as I have been spam fighting for years now and will know what information Google needs to expedite the process.

For others coming across this post, most spam should be dealt with via editing, and should an individual piece return you can used "Send Feedback -> Other Feedback" to escalate it; but larger instances such as this, especially claimed ones, potentially can be escalated.

[Anonymous]

Hi Gregg, thanks so much for your help. I don't know how many business name edits I've made that remain 'pending' after months or are 'not applied' despite being in clear violation of the guidelines in my opinion. So I will take you up on that offer 🙂

Can I PM the list to you directly? The issue with posting this on a public forum is if the spammer is savvy they'll have set up Google Alerts for their business name or they may browse this forum, meaning there's a risk they'll discover who reported them. This is particularly problematic when you consider that the people who are most motivated to police the results are direct competitors and marketing consultants, so you can probably imagine it's not a territory I want to get into.

[LucioV]

Hi @Anonymous i suggest you to call out some Google Moderator that could involve GMB staff to takeover this spammer.

Please, refer to this thread on how to report spam:  https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/becomelocalguide/message-id/356/thread-id/356

[TraciC]

Hi @Anonymous. @Flash has given you excellent information, so thank you, @Flash! I'll send you a private message with information to send the information to the Local Guides team so we can pass the information along for investigation. 

[abhrad]

I have come across the same thing many times where business owners add multiple businesses but located in only one place. I also do the same thing that you do by marking the places as duplicate.

But I have observed some different thing that I would like to ask @TraciC @Flash

To spread their business, some owners of hotel / cabs, uploads edited photos of popular tourist places and that edited photos contain their contact number and also some offer / deal of their hotel / cabs. I would like to know, is that ethical ?? If not then should I report those photos ??

[TraciC]

Hi @abhrad. Please see this post "How do I report content on Google Maps?" which includes links to policies and how you can report those photos as inappropriate. Thank you. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks @TraciC and @LucioV, much appreciated 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hi @TraciC, expanding on @Flash's tip to flag spam by submitting a written message via "Send Feedback -> Other Feedback", can you recommend what pieces of evidence we can attach to help the GMB team? Should we include links to the contact us page, their business registration info or a screenshot from streetview for example?

In the last 12 months I've flagged 102 listings as spam or does not exist. 92 of these are currently 'pending' or 'not applied' and just 10 have been approved, clearly the spam moderation team has their work cut out for them!

[Flash]

Thanks @TraciC for helping here; I was in an all day meeting today.

@Anonymous, regarding your worry that someone will find out you reported some spam, I would not worry too much.  This will not be their sole attempt; they will have run many different spam schemes, most of which will have failed or have been taken down.  They will just move on to the next attempt.  I have been dealing with spam reports for many years and have never seen trouble result do to it.

However, for future reports if you want to be sure to protect yourself, there is no need to name the actual company in the report.  Simply use goo.gl short links to the Maps URLs, and generically describe the issue if the URLs are not obvious.

Edit:  Moving between forums, I did forget how easy private messages are in this forum.  Thank you for asking first, and feel free to private me sensitive information in the future; but it's best to have a forum post also where you tag me as I can get so many uninvited private messages that yours may get lost among them.