As a measure against spam, Google Maps has introduced quality guidelines for business listings. Some of the guidelines include:

• Represent your business exactly as it appears in real life.
• Only include listings for businesses YOU represent.
• Don't participate in any behavior with the intention or result of listing your business more times than it exists.

The guidelines also show admins where they can submit their businesses to Google Maps, as well as apply for reinclusion if their entries were mistakenly removed.

"The guidelines are a first real indication of Google's standards for defining a real business listing from a spammy one," writes the Blumenthals blog. "Previously the only known criteria was the single location/single listing rule."

However, it adds, the guidelines remain ambiguous as to what does and does not constitute as spam.

In any event, spammer or not, publishers stand to benefit from the case studies, help forum and error-fixing features on the quality guidelines page.