Google places: how to deal when competitors spam?
-
My competitors are spamming in google places, how do I report them? following are a few examples of how they are spamming:
Some of them are not local businesses, they somehow managed to get a number and some random address.
Some of them have keywords as company names, their exact company name doesn't have any keywords.
Some of them have multiple places pages with keywords as company names.
how does one deal with it?
-
Hello Amit!
Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. Both Robert and WebFeat have contributed good remarks here.
As it happens, I actually had a chance to discuss this very topic with a Google Places Help Forum Top Contributor not long ago. Here is the process they recommended:
1. Go to the spammy Place Page in question and use the Report A Problem link at the bottom of it to describe the issue you have observed.
2. Wait the requisite 4-6 weeks to see if you get a direct response from Google or if you see any action taken against the spammy listing.
3. If, after this period, nothing has happened, go to the Google Places Help Forum and open a thread there explaining the problem carefully.
4. If one of the Top Contributors flags your thread, it will be sent to Google's Vanessa Schneider who may then decide to take action.
5. However, in the case of large scale, really outrageous spam (let's say a company has 20 phony Place Pages in 20 different cities) you are better off coming directly to the Google Places Help Forum from the get-go rather than attempting to report them one by one. In this event, be prepared to show extensive documentation and to link to all of the examples. Be clear and thorough in describing what you observed, and then be patient to see if it goes anywhere.
Good luck!
Miriam
-
Thanks Robert and webfeatSEO. I will put your advice into use.
-
I reported one company who made hundreds of physical listings for having store locations when it was just an internet site with no store. Took a while but about 2 months after I reported them I got an email from Google saying they had looked into the report and thanking me.
-
Amit
We run into this regularly and there is a way to deal with it.
Whether or not the business is verified in Google Places, click on the Edit this place button in the top right of the Places for the business. You will see a link that says report a problem.
What we do that has worked in the past is to report the business as closed but you can check any of them and a detail box will appear for you to write in the problem. Now, it won't happen overnight and I suggest that if you don't see a change in about 4 to 6 weeks you have someone else report it as well, etc.
Typically, we will see a change in a few months.
Best
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
-
Does google index html5 tracks (captions) for videos?
If we add the <track> tag next to a html5 video, with a Web Video Text Tracks Format (WebVTT) file for video subtitles / captions will google visit that and index it?
Image & Video Optimization | | ismgadmin0 -
Images not being indexed by Google
Greetings, we have an image heavy site (it's a fashion blog that is over 11 years old) and for some reason our images aren't being indexed by google. We've looked at the robot.txt, CDN (we're using cloudfont via Amazon), etc as well as searched google webmaster. We still can't figure it out. None of the images on our pages are being indexed. Any help you could provide would be GREATLY appreciated Site: http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com Sitemap: http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com/sitemap_index.xml Image sitemap: http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com/sitemap-image.xml
Image & Video Optimization | | digitalundivided0 -
Additional Details in Google Places - Should I bother?
I see that the Additional Details I've been inputting in Google Places aren't publishing while everything else is. Why would they offer those fields if they aren't even displayed on the G+ page? Is it recommended to fill them out anyway? dvfWnHP
Image & Video Optimization | | SSFCU0 -
How do I improve positioning in Google Images?
Looking around in Webmaster tools today and I noticed we have hundreds of thousands of impressions in Google Images, but a very low CTR. I understand normal SEO, but what about increasing rank in Google Images? It is hard to get links straight to an image, and we already use proper alt tags. Any other ideas?
Image & Video Optimization | | EcommerceSite0 -
Any special way to rank a youtube vid in google page 1 for a kw?
I've failed to rank a youtube video before , I don't know why.. but do you guys have something that can help me to rank a youtube video to google page one? backlinks? If yes, then what type of backlinks? Just like backlinking articles and websites? thx for the input guys
Image & Video Optimization | | martino8880 -
Should I be submitting to Google Places AND Google + Local?
I hear there is a merging between Google Places and Google + but I still see a sign up page for Google Places is live? Could anyone tell me if I should be submitting to both Google + Local and Places please?
Image & Video Optimization | | Clicksjim1 -
Is it Possible to submit multiple sites on google places with single phone number? If you then please tell me how?
Is it Possible to submit multiple sites on Google places with single phone number? If you then please tell me how? Because i have multiple site but i have one phone number and i want to add all of my sites in google places. But i don't know how it is possible. Please help me to sort it out this problem. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | KLLC0 -
Optimizing for Google Hotel Finder
Hi! As the Google Hotel Finder was also launched in Europe some days ago I was wondering if there is already some best practices for optimizing the entries. I guess that most of the information is directly integrated from the respective Google Places Page... Any insights or views on this topic?
Image & Video Optimization | | adwordize0