Google Local Maps Spam Cleanup or Chaos?

Over the past week a lot of local SEOs have been talking about the big change in local results. It could be related to a Update of Google’s local search algorithm (Google hasn’t confirmed it yet) or it could be anti-spam efforts. But I see complaints that there is too much local spam now and people saying that Google cleaned up a lot of spam.

There are two threads in the Local search Forums about the fluctuations and I’ve spotted a number of posts on social media, some I can share and others I can’t share (because they are not public here).

Frank Watson shared this on Facebook joking “What did Google do with the Local Packs? That’s a bit of luck for these people.” Check out all of these EZ Short Sales Deals:

Phil Rozek said on the local forums:

1. The moving industry is full of spammers and reputable companies (overall) who, as you know, also do spam.

2. Because of the large number of people moving from certain states to other states, in many ways it is a good time to be a moving company and a good time for a spammer to send spam. There are always ants at picnics.

The others comment on how the local results have changed drastically in the last week or so.

And this tweet:

Does anyone else see MAJOR anti-spam movements in the Google Maps rankings?

Spam / fake lists drop everywhere in the rankings.

– Joe Youngblood (@YoungbloodJoe) December 14, 2021

Is Google doing some local spam action or is something else going on? Have you noticed spam in your local searches lately?

Forum discussion at Local search Forums.