I was having an interesting conversation with Steve Hatcher about those spamming their Google listings. It used to be that those interested in spamming would go after reviews. I have seen crowd sourcing done to get a local listing 20, 30 + reviews within days for just pennies per review.
But, as things change so do those working to optimize or ‘game’ the results. Now, don’t misunderstand me- we are all optimizing. If not our clients wouldn’t get results and we wouldn’t get paid. You can create your site do no promotion and hope for the best. However, that is a perfect recipe for failure. But, that doesn’t mean I advocate exploiting to the extreme…which is what we are talking about here.
As Google Local has expanded so have the techniques to rank above your competitors. The latest method under discussion is content rich; specifically kml files, geo-tagged (location) flickr photos, and Google My Maps. All of which can provide more data about a business. However, it is not as straight forward as the typical methods to increase citations or reviews. Of course, it can be easily spammed but unlike reviews this spamming effort is less damaging. I have seen a lot of my maps spam of late but I don’t think it has the juice of prior methods which keeps it a bit less exploited. Which is good for everyone.
For another good read check out our article on: Domain Trust Authority
