Conversion Rate Web Marketing Blog 

It’s unfortunate that we continue to see Australian businesses choosing to spam Google maps.

Mike Blumenthal first reported spam local businesses listing on Google Maps on the 27th July 2007. It’s nearly one year on and Mike is still reporting on cases of spam on Google Maps that Google appear to be turning a blind eye to.

You may recall that we brought attention to a Melbourne mobile mechanic who created over 500 dodgy listings on Google Maps on February 20th this year. Those instances were eventually removed, and that spammer has gone on to find new and innovative ways to spam. They have also made a series of threats against us for reporting on the matter (we may publish those at a later date).

Today we have the case of a Sydney based locksmith with a couple of vans and one registered office that shows up on every street corner of Sydney.

According to Google Maps, this business claims to have 40 addresses in the one suburb alone… Have you ever seen a suburb with a locksmith on every corner? Probably not a suburb that you’d want to live in.

Once again despite many contacts and exchanges with Google, so far nothing has been done about the spam.

We know that showing up in web searches on Google Maps results in many more clicks than even the number one organic result attracts. Undoubtedly, this spammer has attracted plenty of unsuspecting customers through this deceitful measure. Our question for potential customers is:

If a business is willing to falsely represent their business address, how are they likely to treat their customers?

Ultimately, such conduct will come back on the business. It is deceptive, and customers should beware.

Yesterday, Mike Blumenthal called for Google to create a formal solution to the map spam problem. We definitely support this idea. Like the Yellow Pages® of previous decades, Google’s actions (or lack thereof) have a significant economic impact on small businesses in Australia. They have the power to make or break businesses and they must take this responsibility seriously.

In addition we believe that the practice of spamming Google Maps with false addresses is misleading advertising that the ACCC should pursue. If a competitor of yours is engaging in such a practice, you should contact the ACCC and your state fair trading office to register a compliant.

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

Since we reported on eBay’s recent move to force PayPal on all of its online auctions in Australia, you may have heard that eBay has compromised on the second part of its plan to eliminate all competition in the payment systems market.

Faced with the case that was building against the move at the Australian competition watchdog (ACCC), eBay pre-empted a negative response by withdrawing its proposal to eliminate all competition in payment systems.

It was unlikely to go well for eBay at the ACCC as objections flooded in from consumers and bodies like the Australian Federal Reserve Bank, Electronic Frontiers Foundation and others.

Of course, eBay is still forcing everyone to offer PayPal, and I wonder if eBay’s strategy was to distract you from that fact by creating a fuss around the threat to eliminate the competition. eBay can’t seriously have ever believed that they could pull a stunt like that.

Rather than doing their a PayPal business any favours eBay has galvanised dissatisfied users to educate the public on the perils of dealing with the monopoly. It has undoubtedly tarnished the eBay and PayPal brands as well as given competition the best opportunity it has ever had to gain a foothold.

eBay claimed that they should be able to offer PayPal exclusively since they say it is more secure than other payment methods. However, contrary to what eBay’s publicity machine have been pumping out, according to the ACCC (from this artcile by Alex Zaharov-Reutt on ITWire):

5.173 The evidence available does not support the view that PayPal is the most secure method of payment, or offers the best service for all transactions.

Simon Tsang of the Sydney Morning Herald compared eBay’s method of consumer “protection” to organised crime.

We can take this out of the whole eBay + PayPal debacle so far: If you’re operating on the Internet and you’re prepared to walk all over your customers, it will come back to bite you.

Was this whole episode simply smoke and mirrors from eBay to distract you from the fact that they are now forcing you to offer PayPal?

From the author: If you run an eCommerce website then you might wonder, “How do I know if I’m getting as many orders as I could be through my website?” The answer to that question is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your eCommerce website you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your eCommerce website.