Google places: how to deal when competitors spam?
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My competitors are spamming in google places, how do I report them? following are a few examples of how they are spamming:
Some of them are not local businesses, they somehow managed to get a number and some random address.
Some of them have keywords as company names, their exact company name doesn't have any keywords.
Some of them have multiple places pages with keywords as company names.
how does one deal with it?
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Hello Amit!
Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. Both Robert and WebFeat have contributed good remarks here.
As it happens, I actually had a chance to discuss this very topic with a Google Places Help Forum Top Contributor not long ago. Here is the process they recommended:
1. Go to the spammy Place Page in question and use the Report A Problem link at the bottom of it to describe the issue you have observed.
2. Wait the requisite 4-6 weeks to see if you get a direct response from Google or if you see any action taken against the spammy listing.
3. If, after this period, nothing has happened, go to the Google Places Help Forum and open a thread there explaining the problem carefully.
4. If one of the Top Contributors flags your thread, it will be sent to Google's Vanessa Schneider who may then decide to take action.
5. However, in the case of large scale, really outrageous spam (let's say a company has 20 phony Place Pages in 20 different cities) you are better off coming directly to the Google Places Help Forum from the get-go rather than attempting to report them one by one. In this event, be prepared to show extensive documentation and to link to all of the examples. Be clear and thorough in describing what you observed, and then be patient to see if it goes anywhere.
Good luck!
Miriam
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Thanks Robert and webfeatSEO. I will put your advice into use.
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I reported one company who made hundreds of physical listings for having store locations when it was just an internet site with no store. Took a while but about 2 months after I reported them I got an email from Google saying they had looked into the report and thanking me.
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Amit
We run into this regularly and there is a way to deal with it.
Whether or not the business is verified in Google Places, click on the Edit this place button in the top right of the Places for the business. You will see a link that says report a problem.
What we do that has worked in the past is to report the business as closed but you can check any of them and a detail box will appear for you to write in the problem. Now, it won't happen overnight and I suggest that if you don't see a change in about 4 to 6 weeks you have someone else report it as well, etc.
Typically, we will see a change in a few months.
Best
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