Anyone noticed the influx of directorys spamming google allmof a sudden

[TREE-SURGEON-ESSEX]

Just noticed more directorys spamming the hell out of there sites do you think it devalues the genuine search for a local service ?

[Mark Bolam]

Without a doubt.

 

Say if you type in 'tree surgery in xxxxx'

 

The top results all seem to be sites offering to find a tree surgeon, rather than a site belonging to a tree surgeon.

 

Yell.com are up there with the worst offenders, which won't surprise anyone.

[Steve Bullman]

i hate people who start up directories

[mdvaden]

i hate people who start up directories

 

 

Personally, I don't care for the way Google is displaying Google Local search results now either.

 

Adds thumbnail photos in the search results.

 

Pretty much happens for searches of anything that would have been a traditional yellow-pages heading.

 

Its messy looking. Then add to that the directories mentioned in the OP. Although, I'm finding that directories and companies like Servicemagic and Superpages here are not ranking as high as they used to.

 

In time, Google needs to clean this up. But I think there's some slipping cash to Google behind the scenes regarding advertising and stuff. The activity and changes I'm watching does not look like pure search results effort by Google.

 

And when Google puts 3 sponsored ads across the top, that's too much. Down the right side seems the cleanest way to do it.