Sneaky Spam in Local Search

SEO digest

My coworker Mike and I were pondering lunch options today and decided to order from the Honey Hole, one of Seattle's best sandwich places. Every day the place has a line out the door because it's a popular haven for hungry Seattleites who want a belly full of sandwichy goodness, so sometimes we elect to call our order in and pick it up.
Mike and I both independently searched for the Honey Hole's website so we could check out their menu and call in an order. I typed in "honeyhole seattle" and found their site right away. Mike, on the other hand, typed in "honey hole sandwhich seattle" because he's a developer and can't spell (ha ha, burn). Here's what my search result looked like:

Yikes...clearly that site doesn't sell sandwiches (or if they do, they're of the curiously erotic variety). TheHoneyHole.com and HoneyHole.com are clearly two different sites, but why does HoneyHole.com getting a map, address, and reviews shown along with its search result as if it's the actual sandwich shop? Is it a mistake on Google's part? It looks like HoneyHole.com is geotargeting users since I got "swinger seattle" and "stripper seattle" as related searches via the home page--is the geotargeting combined with the nearly identical domain name confusing Google? Is this a bug? Is it easy to infiltrate local search results and mimic a legit local business like a pornographic chameleon (they come and go, they come and go-whoa-whoa-whoa)?

I'm not a local search expert, so I'm really looking forward to hearing your opinion as to how this result popped up. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying my sandwich from the non-porny Honey Hole...

UPDATE: Mike Blumenthal commented below that it happens when a record goes unclaimed by the local business, forcing Google to guess when to show the local info for which domain. He wrote a post about it over at his blog, so check it out. Thanks, Mike!

www.seomoz.org

published @ February 13, 2009