Is Google Places/Maps trustworthy in central Illinois, California, Michigan etc...?

While checking my websites positions in the search results on Google, I noticed that when someone performs a search for the phrase "web designer in central Illinois", Google serves up "local" Places listings of web designers located near Chicago IL which is in northern Illinois.

There is no official city, town, or village named Central anywhere in the State of Illinois, but according to Googles map, it is a location with the zip code 60541. This is the zip code for the official city of Newark, Illinois which is located a few miles north of the location that Google Maps claims to be "Central Illinois".

I decided to do a search for the phrases "central Michigan" and "central California" as well and found the same thing. No official cities named Central in either State, and yet Google maps shows an exact location in both States.

The exact location given by Google Maps in California for "central California" is in the northern part of central California near Sacramento which would be somewhat exceptable if these locations where simply marking the central part of the State. However, like central Illinois, the location given by Google Maps for central Michigan is in the northern tip of Michigan with the same zip code as the official city of Mohawk, Michigan.

I have reported the Central Illinois issue to Google and I am waiting for their reply. I am sure fixing this would improve the search experience for users that are actually located in the central part of a state, which should be something Google would want. While I wait for their reply, I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this? Have you noticed this problem in other states?

 

I am wondering how these locations called "Central" were created in Google Maps. Was it Google themselves for some reason, or did some frauds find a way to create these locations to harness top of the fold serp's positions through Google Places listings. I'm sure that, people in Illinois who search for a business located in central Illinois, would like to find results for businesses actually located in central Illinois.

I don't think it is Google because these locations referred to as Central don't show up in a few of the lesser populated States that I have also checked. I read another thread earlier that stated people are having legit Google Places listings rejected. Someone in the thread commented that there listing was suddenly rejected after being listed for years because the phone number used in the listing did not match the phone number on the website associated with the listing. If Google can crawl all the Places listings and associated websites to find these inconsistancies, they should be able to weed out these bogus locations with duplicate zip codes within their own Maps very easily.

 

Basically the differences in showing wrong locations is due to the matching term found in those listings. I have done some search on central California and yes as you said it is not the location that is center to California region but a community in Yolo County, California.

 

Then why is a bogus zip code being assigned to these locations. Try a search for yourself. I just searched "central IN" and "central MO" to see if they have the same problem in
those States and sure enough, in Missouri and Indiana this bogus Central location is in the southern part of these States. California and New York are the only 2 that have a centrered location marked out of the dozen or so States I have checked.

 

i know why is it happening !

first of all Google is not even giving any weight to the term "central" but it is giving points to the most legitimate business in the city you are looking for like if you are looking for "designer in central Austin" the result would not be changed by typing "designer in northern Austin"
it will always give plus points to the business that has more citations
for information on citations check out Citation directories

 

I wish that was the problem Greg.