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My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Jason Brown, an expert Local SEO, and Google My Business Gold Level Product Expert. Jason has a wide breadth of SEO knowledge but what he really loves to do is fight spam.
Spam has been a major issue in SEO from the very beginning. Over the course of my thirteen-year career, Google has cleaned up many of the most common tactics but local businesses still grapple with an astonishing level of spam especially in the map pack.
Spam fighters like Jason Brown act as consumer vigilantes fighting spam on behalf of legitimate local businesses. I start our conversation by asking Jason about the different ways that spammers are attempting to take advantage of vulnerabilities in Google’s local algorithm.
In many cases, this activity isn’t merely a matter of bad customer experience; it’s actually fraudulent. We talk about why Google hasn’t been able to do more to fight spam and how other third-parties like the better business bureau are involved.
Jason presents at numerous industry conferences including LocalU, Local Search Summit, and Pubcon. He is a columnist for SEMrush and regularly appears in BrightLocal webinars. He is a sought after subject matter expert for national and local news pieces on local spam. If you like this interview, I highly recommend that you follow Jason on Twitter.
Grab a beer and join me for a conversation with one of the top Local spam fighters in the world. We’ll talk about why local Spam is so prevalent, how small businesses can fight back, and the time he found a lawyer who had a listing in the middle of the ocean.