I recently found my Google places account suspended! “Ouch”, I thought at first. There’s no explanation or anything of the sorts. It’s just a “you’re suspended and you should read the rules before reapplying for your account back” type of deal. But I already knew what I did. I know the rules. I knew I was breaking them. Why would I do that? It’s sad to say but it’s because everyone is (or was). I believe my offense (it’s not confirmed yet) was adding keywords at the end of the place’s business name. It’s smart that they don’t want that happening because it’ll get out of hand and it’s not accurate. It makes sense though to me that people would exploit this until being caught. I congratulate the big G for enforcing the rules and making a nicely organized list of business’s. There’s too many other ones out there that suck.

When no one seemed to be enforcing the rules for this what else are you going to do to get to the top of the 7 pack (local results) when everyone else is? So I knew I wasn’t in the right here but what are you going to do in this dog eat dog world… sometimes the nice guys finish last.

As for my listing (Azunga is the only one in that places page account for that account that was suspended) that got suspended it actually never comes up on the local results anyway… I’ve realized and through my testing that web design, web development, and many other computer related services aren’t considered local search terms. That’s even if you include the local town or city name ie. “portland web design” the search isn’t counted as a local search and the normal, more global, search results page comes up. That surprises me a bit because in my experience people prefer to go local with their web / computer needs as a face to face meeting is just so much easier… we’ll see if the Big G changes that anytime soon.