In October 2009, Google issued their new Business Listing Quality Guidelines for Google Maps. The changes address a lot of the questions we have all been asking about what is and isn’t okay.  Here’s Mike Blumenthal’s very thorough  point-by-point breakdown of the new Maps guidelines and my own thoughts on the changes in the Maps guidelines .

The reality is that these new guidelines are just that. They are not rules. They are not requirements. Not yet. Right now, they are just guidelines. In other words, this is just Google’s wish list for what it would like to eventually mold its Local Business Listings into.

Google has a history of warning us when there are widespread abuses that it is striving to control. A prime example is when Google told us it didn’t want us buying links.  It politely said that buying links was unacceptable and issued progressively sterner warnings against it over several months.  Then came obvious slap downs against well known offenders to get our attention and drive most of us into compliance. In my opinion, this is what is currently happening in Maps. We are being warned!

The warning is to clean up our listings and get them into compliance with the new guidelines. It’s pretty tempting to ignore the warnings when others are obviously prospering by doing the exact opposite of what we are being told. But history tells us that Google is working towards ways to enforce each of the new guidelines through its algorithm. We don’t know how close Maps is to being able to do so or when the slap downs might start, but I expect it to begin within the next several months, as new filters associated with the wish list are placed into the algorithm.

Each business owner (or their internet marketer) must decide for themselves if the potential short term reward is worth the possible consequences of ignoring the new guidelines.  It’s risky business, for sure!