Locksmith Spam on Google Places & Bing Local - Local SEO Expert To Mount a Challenge to Spammers

June 13, 2010 - PRLog -- The scam works like this.  Your locked out of your car or home.  You grab your IPhone or other internet tool.  You look up emergency locksmith and you have some choices.  On Google Places you may have 7 locksmiths to choose from.  In most major cities in America five or more of those seven choices will take you to a phone bank.  The operator will take your information and send out a locksmith in your area.  In many cases you are going to get fleeced.  

While there is nothing illegal or corrupt about offering a referral service, the spammers seem to make no attempt to determine who they are working with.  The legitimate local locksmiths will not work with them, so they are generally left with back yard operators without licenses, insurance, or any ethical standard.  Reports are that these fly-by-night operations then charge you far more for the service than you were quoted, create damage to your car or household locks, and are impossible to hold accountable.  

Because of the size of these national operators, they are able to spend whatever is necessary to optimize their positions on the local business search engines such as Google Places, Bing Local, and Yahoo Local.  They may end up with multiple fake addresses in their attempt to dominate the listings.  This has the added effect of driving away the business from legitimate locksmiths.

Randy Kirk has been involved in the lock industry for almost 40 years.  He is also a noted expert on local search engine optimization or seo.  He had this to say about the practice:  "Google Places is the prime target, and they are well aware of the "locksmith" problem.  The problem exists in other industries such as plumbing, carpet cleaning, and other services that are emergency in nature.  But nowhere is the domination approaching what we see in the emergency locksmith business."

We asked Kirk about possible solutions.  "It is possible for the local locksmith to spend his way back into the Google Places 7 pack.  We are working with clients who have accomplished this result.  But even then you are only one of seven and the other six are probably all spam.  It is also expensive to maintain this position.  There is a lot of money to be won or lost based on keeping up with these spammers."

Kirk says he has decided to do something about the situation.  "I started my business career calling on local locksmiths, and I have made a good living working with, selling to, and writing about small local businesses.  I am very disturbed by what I am seeing.  So I've decided to tackle this issue from outside the box."

My goal will be to get 100 or more locksmiths to join together.  With the extra financial muscle from a combined effort, we can gain the upper hand.  We will work with industry leaders, suppliers and the search engines themselves to get this job done.  While we put the finishing touches on the strategic plan, locksmiths who are effected by the spammers can learn a lot about fighting back at my free DIY blogs and videos about Google Places.  They can find out more at http://FreeSeoOptimizationTips.blogspot.com or http://www.GooglePlacesHelp.blogspot.com"

This is not rocket science.  Many of the same things that I have learned and taught in the security business are applicable to this effort.  We need to lock out the spammers and secure the legitimate local locksmith's business.

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Page1Listings.com has been helping small local businesses to maximize their visibility on Google search, and their clients are seeing massive results. Now Page1Listings is turning its attention to a specific group that has been hard hit by the spammers on Google Places. Locksmiths are being driven out of business by well financed groups that don't care about the service that is provided. Call 310-910-1848 for more information. Go to http://www.FreeSeoOptimizationTips.blogspot.com or Page1Listings.com for more info.