Recent content by Iain

Auto dealers often have a pretty grim view of internet customers when it comes to new cars as they are usually price shopping and want to pay $50 over invoice for a $30,000 car. It's the classic 'low gross, high grief' scenario. With used cars it's a different story and Autotrader is the big...

The problem is 'storm chasers' that go from city to city following hailstorms. It's not as widespread as locksmiths, but they use the same tactics.

This was a few years ago when there was a major to-do about locksmith spam. It was using the word locksmith anywhere, even the category. I could remove the word and the listing was fine but as soon as I used it anywhere, even as the category, the listing was suspended.

Another problem with the spammers and scammers is the Draconian action that Google takes can penalize a business doing nothing wrong. During the whole 'locksmith spam' episode a few years ago a client had his lsiting suspended and I could not get it live until the word locksmith was completely...

Here is another fake address scam that is making the rounds. You use a fake address with a real PO box to game the system. Postcard Verification Hack (Profit from this google places loophole!)

Manta is very popular with salespeople as it provides the business owners name without the need for an account or $$$. A lot of that traffic will sales reps looking for the name of the business owner so they can call and pitch him or her. That's another effect of these 'premium' listings is...

One way to use a Google review on your site would be to make a slideshow video using something like Animoto and include snippets of the review in the text slides they allow. Not only would the review be arguably more powerful in video form, but now the business has a video on YouTube that may...