Escort Services on the Internet: The Future

 Very important update! 

EDIT - 9 July 2012 @5pm:

When that other thread was locked, Deb started a new thread requesting clarification from Google on the policy relatng to Places / Maps listings and escort services. An actual Google employee responded:

We treat escort services like any other service area business - if the address is faked or isn't marked as hidden, the listing will be removed.

Locking this thread to discourage further negativity about this topic.

The thread is here:

Hi Jade saw you locked the escort service thread can you please clarify the issue?

So obviously it was the renegade Map Makers with a mission. Make sure to check the box to "hide your address" in your Places dashboard as no customers come to your business location if you have an escort service.

End of edit.

Anyone that has an escort service today needs to pay attention to the outlook for adult businesses on the internet in the US. There is a disturbing element of censorship that becomes more pronounced every day and it's only going to get worse in the future. There are ways around it though.

EDIT on 7 July 2012 @1:45am EST:

I have completely updated two of the Blueprint Updates pages on my website with help around the Maps / Places issue and advertising and marketing ideas and thoughts:

Focus on Local

Advertising

For those of you that read this blog and the Accused Madam Blog regularly, this should not be news. I have often written about the censorship experienced in Orlando for many years and my belief that Orlando is a test city to see what works and what doesn't. They want to know what level of censorship the general public will tolerate and how to work around it. Well, now I see that they've found new ways to bypass the First Amendment using government contracts with big business.

I did edit my last post several times as I had new information to add and I won't be editing it again. The first link in that post is: Listing Removed from Maps Due toTechnical Issue. The link is to a Google help forum for those having various issues, including problems with Maps and Places listings. Read the entire thread. I guarantee it is enlightening.

After my last post on that help forum, I did conduct due diligence. My short time spent on research revealed the following and it is not good news if you own an escort service, a stripper service, or even a strip club. Make no mistake: The agenda is to censor anything and everything that is adult on the internet.

I actually had telephone conversations with close to 10 people in adult business early this morning. Most were positive about the situation and sort of shrugged their shoulders on it as they all recalled what we did before Google existed. Yes, these people were all long-term adult business owners and not people that purchased my books to open a service in the last few years. A few thought that it would be to their advantage when the industry is shoved back in time to print ads. Perhaps they are correct because knocking 100s of thousands of independent escorts out of the picture can't be bad for escort services.

You see, print ads – especially the yellow pages – eliminate much of the competition. No more free or cheap advertising would be available. As one man stated to me, he needed $10K to $15K to get into the yellow pages with decent sized ads and compete. If you've read my book, make sure you've followed all of the advice and not just Google Maps/Places advice. That advice included yellow pages ads, though I did advise you to go light and use services available free or cheap on the internet. Start saving everything you're making now, because you're going to need a yellow pages presence in the future and they usually want substantial down payments.

We already know how hard law enforcement is working to get rid of Backpage, so I won't get into that here. You should also know my thoughts on The Erotic Review (TER). Every federal case that I have researched and posted about in relation to escort services on the Accused Madam Blog has involved TER because their forums are entrenched with agents. Ignore what I'm saying and be a part of a future federal case.

What my research today revealed

If you have placed all of your eggs in the Google basket, you have seriously screwed-up. Fix it right now, before it is too late. I searched for the keyword phrases “escorts” and “escort service” preceded by the city. In other words, “orlando escorts” and “orlando escort service” or “boston escorts” and “boston escort service” etc... Map Makers with an Agenda have already been working hard to remove Maps and Places listings for escort services and entertainment businesses that are adult (i.e. stripper and bachelor party listings) in cities around the US.

Another part of this trend relates to Google updating web search results. About two months or so ago, my two websites that I used for research were completely removed from natural search results when both had been on the top of the first page of results for a long time – one for several years and the other for a year. At the time, I tried guessing why, but none of it really made sense. Anyway, no skin off my ass because I was not actually operating a service. I recently deleted both sites from my hosting account.

More recently I noticed that two services that had operated in Orlando for many years had also been removed from search results. One has been in business since 1992, and the other since 2000. Both are now the disappeared. Thank goodness for Yahoo and Bing, but then we all know that few searchers use either in comparison to the almighty Google.

On a positive note, Apple is working on a local listing service and we will have to watch and see what the future brings on that. Now for the bad news. My research revealed:

All Maps and Places removed in the following cities, but some have popped-up again and then disappeared again, but usually one or two reappeared where there were many before:

Orlando

New Orleans

Boston

Philadelphia

Cincinnati

Louisville

Omaha

San Antonio

Tulsa

Atlanta

Baltimore

Bangor, Maine

Indianapolis

Detroit

Albuquerque

St. Louis

Kansas City

Washington DC

Fort Myers, Florida

Milwaukee

Quebec

Paris, France (yes, you read that correctly)

The following list of cities has most Maps/Places listings removed and only 1 or 2 remain.

Seattle

San Francisco

Pensacola

Reno

Buffalo

Chicago

Fort Lauderdale

These city lists are by no means comprehensive. I didn't search for every city in the country or the world, obviously. If you do not see what I saw, be really happy because it may mean that someone took the censorship power away over at Google. It is hard to imagine that the order to remove all adult businesses came from the top or anywhere close to the top, but you never know.

The other disturbing trend involving escort service websites disappearing from natural search results benefited the following list of ad and listing websites:

EROS

TER

City of Love

City Search

Open Adult Directory

Yellow Pages

Dex Knows

Manta

Naughty Reviews

Map Quest

Backpage

Date Check

EZ Local

Local.com

City Vibe

Insider Pages

Many US cities have few or zero actual escort service websites in the natural search results now. I always thought that search results were supposed to index the most relevant websites first, but obviously something has seriously changed. Watch all of this closely in the future.