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mblumenthal
Much of the LA Dog Bite Lawyer Mapspam has now been removed. I detailed some of the competitor's handy work yesterday and much is now gone
Mike Blumenthal
It is of interest to me that on the search "n***er" that there is not equivalent Google warning.
Mike
@TinPig
Why would an apology be more appropriate than a penalty, then?
Mike
Incredible tool for anyone in Local! Been using it for a couple of weeks now and it is slick.
Mike B
What has always struck me as bizarre is that Google can have the PlusBox so wrong and Local One Box right ON THE SAME record. If they can figure one out, why would they not be able to figure the other out? It is interesting to me that they encourage end user input but then have a tendency to ignore it on occasion.
Mike
Simple steps if you are a rocket scientist! Most business folks would find my instructions beyond reasonable. Changing addresses in the age of the internet should not be this hard.
Mike B
Spam's new frontier seems to be local. Always amazing what lengths folks will go to for a few dollars.
Thanks for the Sphinn.
Mike Blumenthal
Hi Miriam
I initially uncovered only 49 out of the 8500 records but as I uncover more of their domains, the number may be much higher and the problem even bigger than I initially tallied.
If a business has claimed the record, do you think that they would allow it to be changed back?
Mike
The Google Category issue has been a real technical problem in Maps. Search Marketers and SMB's would be well served if this is taken care of sooner rather than later.
Thanks for the sphinn.
Mike
thanks Jeff
Linda- I so want local to work and I think that Google is the best bet for making that happen and yet they seem constitutionally unable of understand what it means to communicate to fulfill the needs of its users. Whether it is a desire to protect their algos, a legal restriction on divulging where the categories come from, the engineers mindset, arrogance or its just in their DNA.
Google is my favorite monopoly but if this is any indication of their behavior over the next 5 years, it will seem like forever. :)
Mike
"Why can't I be in the same category as my competitor" will perhaps become a phrase from last year :).
One wonders why if Google wants SMB's to use their Local tools they make icategories so confusing?
Marty Thanks for the sphinn and Miriam thanks for the coimpliment.
Now we need to get some feet on the street to provide further testing!
Mike Blumenthal
Art Did the fictitious business have a website associated with it? One theory I have is that the LBC might be checking the whois record.
I will be doing a test in the next week or so to see if I can replicated these results.
Mike
Hi Art & Marty-
Art I think that is a function of Google double checking the phone and/or address against previously know addresses & phone numbers....in my case the only phone reference was her home phone...
Was your phone or address previously used for a business?
Mike
One always wonders why Google makes it so hard....
Thanks for the sphinn!!!
Mike
Little late to the party but....
In the end this isn't about me, nor Gab and certainly not about Miriam.
We are confronted with a black box that affects our lives every day. Between us, we have the brain power and some great communication technologies that will help us to better understand this black box....the intellectual problem is challenging and ever changing. It is more than any single person could ever understand from the outside looking in.
Only by cooperating, each picking off pieces, sharing knowledge and experimenting, tracking and reporting can we hope to understand what we are dealing with. Ultimately we need to work on this "aggregate knowledge" as only a collective "brain" can if we ever hope to understand enough to develop best practices. That knowledge will help us all.
The "open source" model works not just across software development but around all types of knowledge development. Knowledge is "meant to be free" and only together we can free more of that knowledge. When we do free it by working together, we all will benefit.
Mike Blumenthal
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Story: "Dog Bite Lawyers" in a Cat Fight over Maps Spam