Local SEO Practice: Creating a Fictitious Business?
-
Has anyone tried fabricating a fake, brick-and-mortar store as an SEO experiment? Sort of along the lines of what Starwood is doing (check out this Wikipedia experiment with the Test Galaxy Sheraton), but with a legitimate physical address and all?
Was it useful? And are there any potential legal troubles that could arise from borrowing a vacant address?
I'm thinking this could be helpful for my Intern to gain practical experience in local SEO, without the politics of working for a client But I wouldn't want to blight that address for future occupants if the experiment went horribly awry.
We could instead offer pro bono services to a small business with a limited web presence – that would be useful to her, and constructive. But I'd like to have a better understanding of what signals Google looks for when deciding whether to index a website in local search, and see whether possible to dupe those algos.
What are your thoughts, Mozzers?
.
-
Duplicate post, sorry!
-
Thanks for your input, Keri! I think we're going to go the pro bono route.
Starwood's a curious case, and I also wonder to what extent those pages exist for SEO reasons. Some of their test properties look innocuous, like sandboxes for translation plug-ins or new templates, but the Wikipedia citation on the 'List of New York Hotels' is really interesting to me. When I was working in-house for a New York hotel chain, I also picked up on weird affinities between that page and rankings in local search. Back in May I noticed that the Magic 7 for "NYC Hotels" exclusively listed hotels with Wikipedia pages, and decided to create one for one of the properties. Bingo! Within a few weeks, we were usually among the top local results for "nyc luxury hotels", "nyc 4-star hotels", and "nyc 5-star hotels" (yeesh, Google, it's either one or the other...)
At the same time, hotels with Wikipedia pages started receiving snippets and thumbnails from their articles on the far right of the screen, adjacent to the map. This seemed to be exclusive to the hospitality vertical, and I didn't notice the same SERP formatting in other cities. You would also see thumbnails of related hotels (which as a rule, also had Wikipedia pages), and a list of features that it seemed to be cross-referencing from multiple sources, like:
Hotel Class: 4 Stars
Architect: Steven Jacobs
Style: Modernist
My hunch is that Starwood was testing two hypotheses with the Test Galaxy Sheraton:
- Does inclusion on Wikipedia's list of hotels in New York City influence rankings, either local or web?
- Does Google source a hotel's 'features' from lists and structured mark-ups on a hotel's own website?
In any case, Google did away with the Wikipedia-heavy SERPs a few months ago but I suspect it continues to inform local search. It makes sense from a business perspective that Google would want to use use open-source data whenever possible. They could crunch its geocoordinates and with their algorithms without paying license fees, I would think, no?
-
I'd totally avoid doing anything like this as well, and think that offering pro bono services would be much better all the way around.
My guess is that Starwood didn't realize that those URLs were live and indexable on the web. I must say that http://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/property/features/attraction_detail.html?propertyID=588&attractionId=1000027215 provided my ROFL of the morning though!
-
Think I needed this, Daniel. Thank you!
My conscience says that you're right. I've gone back and forth on this today, and whatever educational value there might be seems outweighed by the potential to confuse people and affect livelihoods.
There are things that I'd like to test that go beyond the standard on-page/off-page process of citations, schemata, and KML—things like EXIF data, geocaching, and Wikipedia mentions—but it doesn't seem fair to test any of them without having some skin in the game.
Ah, if only there were a sandbox for real company stuff...
-
Yikes!
No, no, no.
A thousand times no.
And once again: no.
Fakery is always and everywhere wrong. It's not complicated.
If that means nothing to you, consider the consequences of exposure.
As a former TV news director I can assure you this is a helluva story:
"Company in the sleazy SEO business is caught red-handed in the cynically calculated use of deceit to intentionally mislead the public by creating a fake business; calls it an "intern experiment" and says it did nothing wrong. Consumer advocates disagree and call for regulation and licensing of SEO industry. Part two tomorrow, as our series on the death of privacy and birth of web big brotherism continues. Are your children safe?"
Sheesh.
Few issues are black and white.
But this is one.
-
Thanks,
Let me know what you think of my post, I am trying to start establishing myself in the blogosphere, though that particular post is really is a high-level recap of Search Love, though I had a lot of points made in David Mihms Presentation, which was amazing.
In response to the local algos, they seem to be, in my opinion, even more neurotic than the organic ones. I mean they are ALL over the place, it is also VERY hard to track local rankings.
-
I agree with Zach and I would suggest going with the other option you already have in your head.
"We could instead offer pro bono services to a small business with a limited web presence – that would be useful to her, and constructive. But I'd like to have a better understanding of what signals Google looks for when deciding whether to index a website in local search, and see whether possible to dupe those algos."
In my opinion, that's the best way to go. @Zach, thanks for posting those links. I will check out your post.
-
You'd be treading in some murky water there. I had a conversation last week at SearchLove Boston with David Mihm, one of the most reputable local SEOs, and we had a conversation about creating fictitious addresses for businesses, the problem is that you cannot use a PO box, which leaves you to use things like UPS store mailboxes. Google can obviously tell that if your at a UPS Store and will take it down; David Mihm explained it as a Wack-A-Mole game.
Also, if you use fictitious addresses, what stops competitors from reporting you? Again, you could try it, but it's real tricky to do, and successfully get away with. I'm much more of a fan of #RCS.
Some good resources to learn from
http://protechig.com/seo/search-love-boston-2012-takeaways/ (not to toot my own horn, but I have a good amount of local tips in this post)
Hope this helps!
Zach
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can anyone share an example of a search strategy they've created?
New year, new plans. I'm currently working on outlining a search strategy for my company's marketing team. I'm primarily in charge of SEO but I'm working closely with our SEM and Content Marketing teams to build out a more holistic, integrated set of goals and initiatives for us all to work with. Does anyone have any good examples of a search strategy they've done in the past // a template they've worked with? I have a pretty good idea of what I want to include but would love to see how others have approached this + get some inspiration.
SEO Learn Center | | Jessie-beck1 -
Trying to rank my personal business website
Hi, Guys I run a small company in england. I've been constantly ripped off by other seo companies. Im have my 1st child and really cannot afford the cost of a company to do this. I have just joined SEO mom look like a really great platform. Is there any advice on how i can rank my website. I am willing to put the time in myself and can devote late nights to try and succeed. Any advice on where to start links etc would be really greatly received. Thank you all.
SEO Learn Center | | letsrent0 -
Two months into SEO and I have a few questions. Read on.
Hey Moz Community Basically, I have been suspended from my job in November (with pay) on railway. Since I have nothing to do. I came across SEO, and since then. these past two months I've been addicted! firstly, I read up on how to make money buying and selling exact match domains. I failed miserably! newbie error and I still have around 10 domains in my godaddy account 😕 Anyway, I came across moz and a few other sites i read -backlino & quicksprout. I decided to go down the root of just starting a blog on one of my domains based at the health and fitness niche, the sites alot like bodybuilding.com. So this site and SEO has kind of became my hobby as I learn. I am now a MOZ pro member and have my site on there getting weekly reports. I do alot of keyword research and I try my best to write posts on what I have researched and by using the yoast WP-pluging. I optimize my article/post. this week I had a report back from moz saying one of my keywords are #31 . So i put the term in google and go along to page 5 I think it was and there I see it. My post! yesterday I check again and its on page 3, then i see it on page 4, around a few hours later. it is back on page 5 and today. it is back on page 3?? Can somebody explain why it is doing this? Also, the keyword difficulty was 38% and theres over 3 million results for that term.. so to see it there in the top #51 was a shock, as all I have done is On page SEO. No social shares yet or Links pointing to the page. So does this mean with social shares and Links. this could easily end up on page 1? I have around 5 articles on the site so far.. all are around 1000 words each and are all optimized the same way but are not in the top #51 on google. one post has even had around 60 social shares and even flooded over 3000 visits in 2 days and still isn't ranking?? and My final long question is this.. I train at my gym and have mentioned to a few of the fellas about my new hobby and it's all I talk about. Then a week or two later, I have this Guy tap me on the shoulder as I'm working out and puts his hand out to shake mine. "hi I'm Tim. One of the lads mentioned to me that your learning SEO and your passionate about what you do". Anyway, too cut a massive story short. He told me he owns a catering company over here in the UK and really wants me to put what I'm learning into practice for his company. He's offered me a wage and commission if I start making sales through his site. Thing is I'm still new to all of this.. I said I will look at his site, his products and pick out low competition keywords. See what the keyword difficulty score is on moz, and create a blog - writing posts the same why I do on my fitness site... optimize the post, share through social networks etc, find who links to his competitors and reach out etc for links and do the broken link tactic to. Can you guys give me some advice? as i'm no big seo company. I'm also thinking of spending the next few days digging deep into google adwords and facebook ads. As I think getting traffic this way will also be good to start off with, even if it is paid. I know alot of you guys work or own an SEO company. So can you give me some points or link me to some good information on how I should do this process for my first, should I say Client? I know this Is one big Q&A.. but I'm trying to explain everything. Thanks Again. Carl
SEO Learn Center | | ashfield19841 -
What are the most effective SEO methods for online communities and forums?
My company has a global online community of over 350,000+ members. We allow users to submit articles revolving around the scrum and agile framework. Sometimes the submissions become overwhelming and I am curious if there is anyone out there who may have experience with this same scenario. I don't want to place meta data on every single article that comes in, because I don't have the resources nor time to optimize each and every article. Does anyone have techniques or suggestions in regards to either leaving the meta data untouched or customizing each individual piece? Any thoughts or ideas will be extremely helpful. Thanks
SEO Learn Center | | ScrumAlliance0 -
Can you have same product name and description on a local and national site at the same time without getting dinged by google?
My question is regarding a few sites we own which are all related. The local site (http://location.company.com) is a extension of the national main site (http://company.com.) We are in the process of launching these new sites as replacements to older sites we created years ago. My first question regarding SEO is it important to the search engines to have unique product content on both sites even though they promote the same products (with same pictures) and brands or can we keep the same product names and descriptions as I hope? I ask this because essentially they are the same site but with with the exception of the local extension..... We thought by re writing all the content on the main pages of both sites along with different; title tags, page title and meta descriptions that that would make the sites different enough to get away with this. Is that the case? Thank you in advance for your assistance, Jake
SEO Learn Center | | Closetstogo0 -
Is SEO Certification.org Worth Having?
I am new to SEO and I am trying to get properly trained. Have the SEO Certification.org professional is worth it? What's your think? Are there any other certifications to have that will properly train you? I know google has one.
SEO Learn Center | | AppleCapitalGroup0 -
Suggestions For Our New Weekly SEO Podcast
We are getting ready to launch our new SEO weekly podcast in the next few weeks and thought I would get your opinion and suggestions on what you would want to hear. This is going to be a free weekly podcast all about the SEO news of the week, tips, what's working and what's not, and things like that.We will mainly be talking about the latest news in the SEO space on a weekly basis. Might even need a co-host from time to time. I thought I would check and see if you guys have any suggestions or recommendations based on what YOU would like to hear in an SEO podcast? I want this to be something valuable that people will enjoy and benefit from so let me know if you have any suggestions for topics we should cover, show format, etc. Thanks in advance!
SEO Learn Center | | N5c0 -
What should we include in the updated developers SEO cheat sheet?
Hey folks, Do you all remember the developer's SEO cheat sheet? It's super awesome. But it's also a little old. What super awesome ideas do you have for the updated version? What should we include? What should we take out? Any developers around - what SEO knowledge would you most like to see in a cheat sheet? Thanks!
SEO Learn Center | | TomCritchlow3