Is This SPAM?

[Jonathan Hatton]

I have been having a bit of trouble trying to get a Google My Business listing increased for a client. Before the updates in 2014, my client ranked 3rd organically and 2nd in the map listings for the keyword: 'Airport Transfers Liverpool'.

You can see in the image, that since the updates, the company MCLK is being listed in the top 4 natural/map positions.

I spoke to a Google My Business employee regarding my client having dupes, and mentioned this to them out of interests and they said that this was clearly and error with the algo and will be reported to the engineers.

My question is, regardless of whether this is an error on Google's part, do you think that this is some clever spamming or just some good local optimization?

 

[mborgelt]

I wouldn't call it good SEO since they use the same phone number.

 

[Jonathan Hatton]

thats what I thought and when I spoke to Google they saw it as an error on their part. But the issue remains unresolved