Image credit: Visit Lakeland[1]
Reporting fake and duplicate listings to Google sounds hard. Sometimes it can be. But very often, it’s as easy as falling off a log, takes only a modest session of spam fighting and can yield significant local ranking improvements.
If your local business/the local brands your agency markets aren’t using spam fighting as a ranking tactic because you feel you lack the time or skills, please sit down with me for a sec.
What if I told you I spent about an hour yesterday doing something that moved a Home Depot location up 3 spots in a competitive market in Google’s local rankings less than 24 hours later? What if, for you, moving up a spot or two would get you out of Google’s local finder limbo and into the actual local pack limelight?
Today I’m going to show you exactly what I did to fight spam, how fast and easy it was to sweep out junk listings, and how rewarding it can be to see results transform in favor of the legitimate businesses you market.
Washing up the shady world of window blinds
Image credit: Aqua Mechanical[2]
Who knew that shopping for window coverings would lead me into a den of spammers throwing shade all over Google?
The story of Google My Business spam is now more than a decade in the making, with scandalous examples like fake listings for locksmiths[3] and addiction treatment centers[4] proving how unsafe and unacceptable local business platforms can become when left unguarded.
But even in non-YMYL industries, spam listings deceive the public, waste consumers’ time, inhibit legitimate businesses from being discovered, and erode trust in the spam-hosting platform. I saw all of this in action when