Eric Gehler SEO Richmond Virginia

Outing a BlackHat Scammer for Google Maps Spam

Looking through some SERPS the other day I was looking into the Gold Niche.  What struck me as odd was a a Google Maps listing a local location here in Richmond Virginia.  The location turned out to be a parking garage adjacent to the VCU Siegal center.  The listing was showing in the 3 Box Location for the SERP result of the keyword term I was investigating.

As I investigated this Black Hat website of  cashgoldjewelry dot com it is a website set up with a Geo Targeted Location Generator script with Doorway pages to many major cities and towns.

Further Investigation I came across Newark result that was a vacant lot A Louisville result that was another parking garage, a Miami result that was a House for sale on the intersection corner, and another parking garage in Wilmington Delaware.

Looking further into the website for SEO factors we see Google has indexed Results 1 – 10 of about 241 from cashgoldjewelry dot com.

This blackhatter is targeting major cities in Alabama Arkansas Delaware District Of Columbia Florida  Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi  Missouri North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee  Virginia West Virginia with his Google Maps Spam.

I even went so far as to call the phone number on his website.  It lead to a geeky sounding guy’s answering machine asking you to press 1 more information. After I pressed 1, the phone hung up.  I called today and there was no Message this time at all.

So Black Hat scammer used a location generator to create many doorway pages.  Scraped more them likely the Yellow pages for addresses of Parking Garages, Cemeteries, Houses for sale to acquire the physical address city and zip codes. Then created a mass XML file to upload to Google Maps to generate the Google Map’s Listing.   Quite a nice bit of black hat work I must say.

The results, many first position listings via Google Maps, many 4 Box Map SERP Listings and I am sure many click through to his website.

The question is will GOOGLE do anything about it and how long?

The interesting this is I reported several of the locations to see them removed and in 24 hours like a bad episode of Ground Hog Day to return to their full Black Hat Scammy Spammy Spots in the SERPS.

If you see one REPORT IT!!

Will keep you updated on the progress if any Google makes.