Shutting down rogue G+ Pages
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We are helping a client clean up some past agencies SEO work in G+ and needed to figure out the best way to shut down duplicate G+ pages.
The pages were created with post office boxes, household addressed, etc to create a location in multiple cities. What is the most efficient way to shut down 40+ pages in 5+ cites? Do we need to get usernames/passwords for all of these to shut them down?
Has anyone had luck getting Google's help on mass cleanup like this?
Signed,
Exhausted already!
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I figured, but was hoping for some off the wall genius!
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Thanks, SEO 5 Team. Appreciate the kind words!
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Awesome response Miriam. No short cuts on this one Jake
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Hi Jake,
Oh, my, that sounds like a really bad situation! Yes, you've got to get rid of these. If these listings are duplicates of an accurate, honest listing with a genuine physical street address, then the best thing to do is to use the 'report a problem link' on each page. Do not claim these listings! But do be logged into the client's authoritative account while you report the problems. Click the 'place is a duplicate' box and describe as best you can. In the description field, include the URL of the single, accurate listing. State that you are the business owner and are attempting to clean up spam created by a previous SEO company. Be as detailed as you can.
Now, once you've accomplished this, you need to engage in a citation cleanup campaign, searching the web for all possible references to these bogus addresses associated with the business name or phone number. These also need to be cleaned up to try to clean up Google's data cluster about the business.
Nota Bene: Before I touched this project, I would let the incoming client know that, while I will make my best effort, this level of spam is pretty egregious and I cannot guarantee results here because of this. The business may already be penalized. Bad citations may continue to auto-populate for years to come. It's really a mess. So, I would do my best, but 40 spam listings in 5 cities is a scarily tall order for anyone to clean up.
Hang in there, Jake. I'm not surprised you're already exhausted!
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