Fake Listings in Your Trade on the Map

What the map shows in some trades

Search for a locksmith, a tow truck or garage door repair in many Canadian cities, and the map at the top of the results can be crowded with businesses that do not exist.

The names are long and full of keywords. The addresses are houses, mailbox stores or empty lots. The phone numbers ring a dispatcher who may be in another city entirely.

Meanwhile a real locksmith with a shop, two vans and twenty years in town sits below them, or off the map altogether.

The trades affected share one feature: customers call in a hurry, from a phone, without comparing much. That makes a place on the map worth faking.

How to tell a listing is fake

• A name full of keywords, such as a town and 24 hour service.
• An address that is a house, a mailbox store or a vacant lot.
• No photographs, or stock images of vans with no lettering.
• Clusters of near-identical listings across the city.
• Reviews in bursts, short and interchangeable.
• No website, or a one-page template with no address.

The fourth is the clearest signal. One odd listing could be a small operator with a clumsy name; eight with the same structure, the same kind of photographs and phone numbers in sequence are a network.

Why they exist

Many fake listings in these trades exist to generate leads. Each funnels calls to a central dispatcher, who passes the job to whichever technician is available and willing.

The customer thinks they called a local business. They may get a subcontractor who quotes low on the phone and much higher on the doorstep, with no shop to return to if something goes wrong.

For real businesses in the trade the cost is double: lost calls, and customers who become wary of the whole trade after a bad experience.

Reporting them

Google provides several ways to report these, none of them instant.

For a single listing, open it in Google Maps, choose Suggest an edit, then the option to close or remove it, and pick the reason that fits, such as spam or not existing.

Keyword-stuffed names can be corrected the same way, by suggesting the real name. For a cluster, Google offers a complaint form for businesses that misrepresent themselves on the map.

The Google My Business help forum is also worth knowing: volunteer experts there can pass a well-documented case to Google staff.

Evidence makes the difference: a Street View image of the house at the listed address, screenshots of the matching listings, the phone numbers side by side. Keep a record of what you reported and when.

A worked example

A locksmith with a small shop on a commercial street in a Fraser Valley city, and two vans, searched for locksmith from the shop's own front step.

Six listings appeared above theirs in the map results. Four had names built from the city's name and the words emergency and 24 hour, addresses that were houses, and phone numbers a digit or two apart.

The owner saved Street View images of each address, suggested edits marking each listing as not existing, and sent the cluster through the complaint form with the evidence in one document.

Several listings came down within a few weeks. Two reappeared under new names, which is common, so checking became a monthly habit.

Meanwhile the shop made its own listing unmistakable: photographs of the storefront and sign, the vans and the key-cutting bench; the exact name on the sign; real hours; and a website that matches line for line.

Making a real business obviously real

Reporting removes some fakes. Making your own listing undeniably genuine helps every time a customer compares.

Use your real name, exactly as it appears on the sign and invoices, with nothing added.

Show the address if customers come to you. If they do not, set the listing up as a service area business, as Google's rules require.

Add photographs regularly: the premises, the lettered vehicles, the team at work, finished jobs. Fakes rarely have them, and customers notice.

Ask satisfied customers for reviews, steadily, and reply to them. A long history of specific reviews is very hard to fake.

A website that matches

A customer who doubts the map often checks the website. Fakes tend to have none, or a thin page with no address.

Yours should say who you are and where: the street address, the people, how long you have been in business, and your licence number where your trade requires one.

Explain how pricing works, including any call-out fee. Vagueness about price is a hallmark of the dispatch operations, and being specific is itself a sign of a real business.

And make the site's name, address and phone number match the listing exactly, so customers and search engines can see they belong together.

What not to do

Do not answer fakes with fakes. Extra listings for your own business at other addresses break Google's rules and can get your genuine listing suspended with them.

Do not add keywords to your own name, however crowded the map is with names that do. It is against the guidelines, and competitors report it.

And report only what you can show is false. A real competitor with a clumsy name is a different matter from a business that does not exist.

The counter-case

In most trades and most towns the map is largely real, and none of this is needed beyond keeping your own listing complete.

Reporting has limits, too. Fakes return under new names, and removing them does not by itself lift your listing; Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence, and the fakes were only part of the picture.

Your own listing, reviews and website carry the rest.

Where your trade is targeted, though, report what you can document and make your own business unmistakably real.

Once a month

1. Search your trade from your own premises.
2. Note listings that look fake.
3. Save evidence before reporting anything.
4. Suggest edits on each fake listing.
5. Use the complaint form for clusters.
6. Add new photographs to your own listing.
7. Check your site matches the listing exactly.

Step three is the one that gets results. A report saying a listing looks fake is easy to dismiss; one with a Street View image of a house and matching phone numbers is much harder to ignore.

Keeping the photographs on your own listing current is covered in photos on your listing posted by customers.

Frequently asked questions

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