Blended Algo?

[raylaminac]

Hello,
I have been seeing this more and more lately where a maps listing is displaying SEO data from the website like so:


I hope you can see this without too much difficulty.

The search is "windshield repair covina ca", the results only bring up one listing! It looks like it is verified but its not all the way optimized and still in the old dashboard if my reading has guided me correctly.

The title shown is the website title, and the description is pulled from the site. Is this a form or Rich Snippet? How are these businesses clogging up an entire search page with this?

Windshield Repair is not in the title, but it is in the description. Repair is in the title, as is Covina, CA but that should not justifiably prevent any other business from showing here.

I remember Google has done something that involved combining the two in one way or another, and another short lived change they made that would only show one listing for a business on a single page, could this be another shot at that?

And truthfully, I'm not necessarily trying to figure out to get this for my clients (though it wouldn't hurt), I just think this is a poor user experience and that there has to be some sort of spam at hand here.

I'm ranting a little bit, I'm sorry. But this seems completely outrageous to me! And its happening more frequently.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hey Ray,

This seems to be an ongoing issue with Google.

Check out this thread - http://localsearchforum.catalystema.../10000-attack-bad-google-local-one-boxes.html

And this post by Mike B - Have the Hummingbird One Boxes Been Flushed Down the Toilet? | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

 

[raylaminac]

That's a bummer. I've been sending feedback to Google when I see it so hopefully it won't stick around too long; Mike seemed to have had some success there so I guess I'll just have to keep at it.

Thank you Colan

 

[Linda Buquet]

So far Ray, all the harping Mike and I have done (he's written several more posts besides that one on the problem) have resulted in Google fixing one off spammy listings. But we've not been able to get them to actually fix the broken algo that's causing the problems.

But now I think Mike is working directly with an engineer so I think we'll see some progress now.