Google Research just released a research piece titled ‘Keeping fake listings off Google Maps’. I wont nitpick the whole article, you can read it for yourself Here, suffice to say I am pretty disappointed with this article.
Google My Business has fantastic wins day in and day, that the public never get to hear about because GMB’s PR is very reluctant to talk about these. As TC’s we know about these wins, heck we even initiated some of these wins, so we know that you are fighting the good fight, but this article is pure Piffle.
Within 5 minutes of reading this article I found a result with 4 listings that should not be there and that was in San Diego, let alone looking further afield. Or this one from Florida which I have reported five times.
Let Google My Business publish their wins like the Web Spam team does on a regular basis, show users the effort that we as TC’s see on a regular basis, shout about the real wins. This article is a disservice to the Google My Business teams out there, that fight the good fight.
We all know that you may not always get it right, but this article is bordering on the fantasmagorical, yes thats a made up word, just like the stats in the article.
The Research Paper
Mike Blumenthal dives into the research and methodology of the paper and provides excellent insight into the flawed results, well worth reading the article.