Thousands of G+ Local hotel listings hijacked per SELand

[Dave]

uh oh. major scam/spam in the local arena per SearchEngineLand today:

Thousands Of Hotels Listings Were Hijacked In Google+ Local

Per Danny Sullivan, Google is addressing this major flaw immediately.

 

[LocalReviewGuy]

Just saw that too. WOW that is crazy. Would love to know the details of how it happened. But knowing Google...

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thousands of Hijacked Google+ Local Hotel Listings

Great catch and interesting read from Danny Sullivan over at Search Engine Land.

Thousands Of Hotels Listings Were Hijacked In Google+ Local

Thousands of hotels listed within Google+ Local appear to have had links leading to their official sites ?hijacked? and replaced with ones leading to third-party booking services. Google+ Local listings are what Google depends on to provide results in Google Maps or Google Search, when people look for local businesses.

Sounds like Google is aware and already cleaning up these bogus listings.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Dave. I was doing post at same time and did not see yours so just merged our posts together.

 

[Dave]

Thanks Dave. I was doing post at same time and did not see yours so just merged our posts together.

....great minds/think alike

 

[Dave]

If one reads through the comments on the SELand article; first there are a LOT of comments. Secondly this situation within the hotel industry is not unique. Its evidently been going on for years. There are enough comments from people active in the hotel seo world to identify that this has been a long term problem identifying ways to steal local records.

I'm astonished the problem has been in existence for so long and google has allowed it to continue unabated. Its simply escaped larger notice. Its a big hole with regard to the control of records.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Just heard from Jade that Google issued a statement at the Google and your Business Forum about this.

Spam issue for some hotels in Places for Business

We've identified a spam issue in Places for Business that is impacting a limited number of business listings in the hotel vertical. The issue is limited to changing the URLs for the business. The team is working to fix the problem as soon as possible and prevent it from happening again. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.