• Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search , Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:33 PM

Tons of local businesses have sought to cultivate their online traffic through a Google Maps listing, and have been met with buggy spam filtering and relatively nonexistent live support from Google. The giant has taken one of its first steps toward combating the subpar merchant experience by laying out a set of "quality guidelines" for being included in Maps, as well as an automated form to fill out for getting reincluded (if a listing gets pulled).

The guidelines include making sure that the business' online listing matches its real world contact info, providing users with the most direct contact info (i.e., the local office number as opposed to the 800-number), as well as not putting descriptive info or keywords into the place where the company name should be.

"The guidelines are a first real indication of Google's standards for defining a real business listing from a spammy one," Mike Blumenthal says.

Read the whole story at Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search »