Comment by JadeNB

> One of the interesting things is the shenanigans some of these companies would pull to show up first in our local results. A whole lot of A1 and AAA names began to spring up as they decided that if the list was going to be alphabetical by default, then they needed to be the first in their category.

This well predates Google, though; it was a common trick for placement in the (physical) phone book.