Map Spam - Can Google Kill It?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Tuesday, 28 of October , 2008 at 9:37 am

Local search is growing into its own, which means that there is going to be a growing threat of spam. You’d think that Google, as long as its been the top dog in search, would have figured out a way by now to pre-empt spam and address the issues before the pop up. I guess that would be too much to ask.

This blog post describes a new phenomenon in map spam. While it hasn’t been a huge problem - yet - the potential is there. And if you are one of the victims discussed in this blog post then you probably do - and should - see it as a big problem. A 30% loss in profits is a big deal no matter what your former profit margin was.

I like the blogger’s suggestions, though. Especially the last one:

One, they need to do their homework, two they need to turn it in on time, three they need to stop relying on the likes of me, and others like me, to highlight the worst cases and four when they do find a case of spam, they need to go back and scrub the data not just remove the most visible of them.

If Google is going to fight spam then they need to go through and identify the cases of spam. Even better, they need to devise a spam fighting mechanism for Maps so that this doesn’t happen again. Maybe some kind of editorial review with checks and balances to prevent editors from abusing their authority.

                      Category: Search Engines                      

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