Joy Hawkins shared a very unusual bug with Google Maps where it places businesses with different addresses in the same location in the same map pin area. It just drops these map pins in one address when they are not located by that map pin.
Joy Hawkins posted on X calling this a "new spamming technique." She added in the Local Search Forums, "I've seen this several times in the last few weeks." "People are noticing that several businesses with completely different addresses are all now showing up pinned at the same location," she added.
Joy thinks there is a good chance this is intentional and real spam. She said this "vecause Google filters out businesses at the same location. So if you want your competitors to disappear, just move their pins to the same location, and they will vanish on Google."
Here is a screenshot:
Have any of you seen this before?
Forum discussion at Local Search Forums.
Update: This might be more spam/manipulation related?
Lovely. Look at all these insurance businesses that some spammer moved to all at the same location, many many miles away from their real office. h/t @MattCasady @tomwaddington8 pic.twitter.com/eSAT1mrRpR
— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) June 4, 2024
