This is a new one that I have not seen before. Google’s own map results are ranking in the top 10 search results for a search query. For a certain search query, “antique auctions northeast georgia”, Google is showing the maps results. But, further down the page, in the organic search results, Google is showing a page from their own Google.com domain, which, when clicked on, shows a maps listing of antique auctions in northeast Georgia.
The search query above is “antique auctions northeast georgia”, and Google.com is in the number 5 spot in the organic search results.
I did look into this further, and see that it’s a “mymaps” listing, which is different than Google’s main Maps listings. “Antique Shops in Northeast Georgia – Google” is the title tag of the page, and it appears that the page was made with Google “my maps”. The full URL that is ranking is:
https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer?mid=1md742AagxeQvev1wxVtLUy1jbSQ&hl=en_US
From what I can tell, there are no backlinks to this particular URL, and searching for the URL in quotes in Google reveals no other web pages that list this URL. The URL is, though, indexed in Google, and you can find it in Google by putting the URL in the search query field. It was last cached on June 24th, so it’s actively being crawled. I am assuming, then, that there are, in fact links pointing to this URL from somewhere.
Searching in Google, looking at the number of pages indexed for this query:
site:https://www.google.com/mymaps/
I see that there are “About 8,380,000 results” according to Google. What I do find odd, though, is the pages that are showing up for that search query:
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Those are the top 6 search results for that query, and many of them appear to contain links to websites that are either illegal downloads or?
I get that these appear to be user-generated content. They’re maps created by Google users. But really? Why should a Google search results page from Google.com (a listing of locations on a Google map), rank well in Google (in the top 10 search results)? And, further more, this Google.com page is outranking a Yelp search result and ACTUAL SMALL BUSINESSES who are, in fact, antique auction houses in Northeast Georgia.