Are people trying to sabotage businesses by manipulating their Google Maps pins?

Mike Miranda is a graphic designer whose business is based in Revere, Massachusetts. In case you aren’t a geography buff, Revere is far — really far — from Africa. 

But in mid-June, Miranda made a peculiar discovery. 

“I was checking my rank,” he said. “I’m an SEO guy, always on top of it, and I figured out my Google pin was moved to Africa — practically in the ocean.”

When Miranda moved the pin linked to his business back to its correct location, the change threw up an error with Google, which asked why the location had changed. He wound up having to supply Google with evidence to show he owned his own business and that it was where he said it was. 

“The reply from Google was just weird,” he said. “It looks like they trust random people more than business owners. They ask you for videos, they ask you for everything, like proof of your business, whatever.”

Miranda isn’t alone. It’s impossible to say definitively who or what changed his business details, but he was likely a victim of a more widespread problem that’s playing out across the country. People can move an organization’s pin on Google Maps without having any connection to the business, and business owners are finding their pins moved to faraway locations. It can hurt companies because it lowers their SEO rank or removes them from Google search results in a geographical area.

It’s hitting businesses across the country, from a cleaning company in Auburn, Georgia (hit twice so far this year, according to an employee’s LinkedIn post), to Miranda in Massachusetts, to an insulation company in Kansas City, Missouri.

Besides taking up several hours of his time, Miranda’s shock relocation has hurt his business. He had hundreds of photos of his work as a mini portfolio associated with his Google business account that would show up in a context box on the right side of a search result, next to his map pin. The photos temporarily disappeared, though they’ve since returned.

He also fears he may have lost some of his local SEO ranking. “Local SEO is one of the best things a business has,” he said. “It’s really important.” For him, search traffic is a major driver of work, and any change of location means he’s no longer in contention to be shown to people wanting to find a local graphic designer.

A Google representative said in a statement, “Our automated systems and trained operators work around the clock to monitor Maps for suspicious behavior, including incorrect edits to places.” The rep added that Google is “currently investigating [the moving of pins] and taking relevant action on affected listings as well as abusive accounts as per our policies.”

Maybe it’s just a traffic jam?

David Jackson first noticed something was weird when he popped the name of his client, Insulation Pros, into Google Maps on his dash-mounted phone and it showed double the usual drive time.

Jackson, the owner of a web-design and SEO agency based in Kansas City, Missouri, had made the trip to his client every quarter or so. About a month ago, when he searched for Insulation Pros on Google and hit the “directions” button, the 20-minute drive was now going to take 45.

Jackson didn’t think much of it — there could easily have been an accident or traffic. But partway into his journey, he realized the app was routing him in entirely the wrong direction: toward Smithville, due north of Kansas City. Insulation Pros is based east of Kansas City, in Independence. 

Jackson pulled over. 

“I went in to take a look at the Google business profile, but the address was still the Independence location,” he said. “I thought it was very strange,” because “when you typed in the address into Google on its own, it would show the correct location.” But when he requested directions to the Google business profile — the way most people would encounter the business in a search — it took him to a different location.

Jackson drove to the insulation contractor’s headquarters and began chatting with the company’s boss. The firm had known its Google Maps location was out of whack too. It first realized it when some of the company’s drivers ended up in the wrong place when looking for their home base. 

“He discovered it about the same time we discovered it,” Jackson said. “We had no notification, no warning. It's just one day, I decided that I need to go out there and meet with them. And I use Google Maps and it just was taking me to a spot. And I don't think a customer would have known at all that that was correct or not.” 

Through Jackson, Insulation Pros declined to comment for this story.

Together, Insulation Pros and Jackson looked at the Google Maps listing to try to correct the misplaced pin, which they presumed had moved because of a glitch. Instead, they saw there were a number of pending edits to the location moving the business’s map pin even farther away. 

The effect was significant. Not only did Insulation Pros lose money through inefficiencies as drivers were sent to the wrong location to pick up the tools and equipment they needed to carry out jobs, but Jackson noticed the company’s SEO ranking also fell. 

“We no longer showed up in Independence, which was the city that we wanted to rank for, because the pin was moved about,” he says. The following month, the company saw an unseasonably large decrease in inquiries.

“It’s very cutthroat.”

Jackson later learned a second client of his, a limousine company, also saw its pin move without the business owner’s knowledge or permission. “I can't say that this is actually what happened,” Jackson said, “but I do know that both of these particular clients are in very competitive industries. It’s very cutthroat.” He believes that shifting map pins is just the latest trick unscrupulous business owners are using to one-up the competition.

Jackson acknowledges that Google is in a difficult position. Its goal is to better inform customers and reduce the friction in their interactions. If a pin is slightly misplaced on a road, allowing those who’ve tried visiting the business but not managed to find it easily to relocate it to more accurately reflect the real-world location is a boon. 

“Google trusts the general public on edits more than they trust business owners with claimed listings,” Darren Shaw, a search-engine expert at Whitespark, said. “So they accept the updates.” But now that it’s been weaponized, Jackson thinks Google needs to change tack. 

Those affected say the damage is already done but that things need to change. “The proof should be on the person moving it,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, a lot of those decisions are at the detriment of the business,” which is “par for the course with a lot of the updates they've made to Google over the last year. It's one of the punches that we have to roll with. But this one in particular, it stinks.”

Chris Stokel-Walker is a UK-based journalist. His latest book is How AI Ate the World.