Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How do I get rid of rogue listings?
-
Unfortunately, Google has taken bits and pieces of my business and combined it with non-existent businesses and other rogue information. So now my business has 3 locations.
One proper listing that I created and manage.
One that uses my website address but nothing else is correct in the listing.
One that contains my name(incorrectly), but the address and everything else about it is incorrect.
I have reported these places many times but they continue to hang around and I am lost/confused on what to do next.
Please advise.
-
Hi Dignan,
The appropriate thing to do in cases like these it to go through the REPORT A PROBLEM link at the bottom of each problematic Place Page. It's a good idea to be signed into your account while doing this. Describe the situation and link to the correct listing for your business in the wizard. State that you have only one address - the one on your authoritative listing. Ask that these 2 other listings be removed.
Wait 4-6 weeks to hear back from Google (could take considerably less time these days, actually). If you do not see resolution, then take the matter to the new Google Places Help Forum. The new forum will be here:
http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!forum/maps
Explain the steps you have taken and ask if a Top Contributor can please help you obtain resolution.
*In your shoes, I would also do some sleuthing to try to figure out where the other data is coming from...it's coming from somewhere and discovering the origin may help you to surmise what is going on.
Hope this helps and good luck!
Miriam
-
As you have your listing I would suggest that you continue to try and get those listings removed by reporting it to Google.
One way that you can demonstrate that your verified listing is the "credible" and only one is through local citation linkbuilding and getting people to place reviews on your listing.
The more activity will show hopefully push the other two down in SERP's and eventually be removed from Google.
Good luck,
Vahe
-
HI Brent,
Thanks for the reply. As of last week the phone numbers were different on the rogue listings, but I just checked...and guess what...both now have MY phone number.
So it looks like I could claim them. It was advised that the best way to deal with these listings would be to just report them to Google, opposed to claiming them.
They mentioned it was against the rules for me to have more than one listing(even if my intention was to nix the two rogue listings.)
Care to share your input?
-
This may be obvious but you haven't mentioned it. Did you try to claim the listings? Or are they already verified and claimed by somebody else?
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
-
Is there a way to get a list of all pages of your website that are indexed in Google?
I am trying to put together a comprehensive list of all pages that are indexed in Google and have differing opinions on how to do this.
Technical SEO | | SpodekandCo0 -
Getting rid of pagination - redirect all paginated pages or leave them to 404?
Hi all, We're currently in the process of updating our website and we've agreed that one of the things we want to do is get rid of all our pagination (currently used on the blog and product review areas) and instead implement load more on scroll. The question I have is... should we redirect all of the paginated pages and if so, where to? (My initial thoughts were either to the blog homepage or to the archive page) OR do we leave them to just 404? Bear in mind we have thousands of paginated pages 😕 Here's our blog area btw - https://www.ihasco.co.uk/blog Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
Technical SEO | | iHasco0 -
If I'm using a compressed sitemap (sitemap.xml.gz) that's the URL that gets submitted to webmaster tools, correct?
I just want to verify that if a compressed sitemap file is being used, then the URL that gets submitted to Google, Bing, etc and the URL that's used in the robots.txt indicates that it's a compressed file. For example, "sitemap.xml.gz" -- thanks!
Technical SEO | | jgresalfi0 -
Site indexed by Google, but (almost) never gets impressions
Hi there, I have a question that I wasn't able to give it a reasonable answer yet, so I'm going to trust on all of you. Basically a site has all its pages indexed by Google (I verified with site:sitename.com) and it also has great and unique content. All on-page grades are A with absolutely no negative factors at all. However its pages do not get impressions almost at all. Of course I didn't expect it to be on page 1 since it has been launched on Dec, 1st, but it looks like Google is ignoring (or giving it bad scores) for some reason. Only things that can contribute to that could be: domain privacy on the domain, redirect from the www to the subdomain we use (we did this because it will be a multi-language site, so we'll assign to each country a subdomain), recency (it has been put online on Dec 1st and the domain is just a couple of months old). Or maybe because we blocked crawlers for a few days before the launch? Exactly a few days before Dec 1st. What do you think? What could be the reason for that? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | ruggero0 -
Getting Pages Indexed That Are Not In The Main Navigation
Hi All, Hoping you can help me out with a couple of questions I have. I am looking to create SEO friendly landing pages optimized for long tail keywords to increase site traffic and conversions. These pages will not live on the main navigation. I am wondering what the best way to get these pages indexed is? Internal text linking, adding to the sitemap? What have you done in this situation? I know that these pages cannot be orphaned pages and they need to be linked to somewhere. Looking for some tips to do this properly and to ensure that they can become indexed. Thanks! Pat
Technical SEO | | PatBausemer0 -
How to get Google to index another page
Hi, I will try to make my question clear, although it is a bit complex. For my site the most important keyword is "Insurance" or at least the danish variation of this. My problem is that Google are'nt indexing my frontpage on this, but are indexing a subpage - www.mydomain.dk/insurance instead of www.mydomain.dk. My link bulding will be to subpages and to my main domain, but i wont be able to get that many links to www.mydomain.dk/insurance. So im interested in making my frontpage the page that is my main page for the keyword insurance, but without just blowing the traffic im getting from the subpage at the moment. Is there any solutions to do this? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | Petersen110 -
Robots.txt file getting a 500 error - is this a problem?
Hello all! While doing some routine health checks on a few of our client sites, I spotted that a new client of ours - who's website was not designed built by us - is returning a 500 internal server error when I try to look at the robots.txt file. As we don't host / maintain their site, I would have to go through their head office to get this changed, which isn't a problem but I just wanted to check whether this error will actually be having a negative effect on their site / whether there's a benefit to getting this changed? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | themegroup0 -
How to use overlays without getting a Google penalty
One of my clients is an email subscriber-led business offering deals that are time sensitive and which expire after a limited, but varied, time period. Each deal is published on its own URL and in order to drive subscriptions to the email, an overlay was implemented that would appear over the individual deal page so that the user was forced to subscribe if they wished to view the details of the deal. Needless to say, this led to the threat of a Google penalty which _appears (fingers crossed) _to have been narrowly avoided as a result of a quick response on our part to remove the offending overlay. What I would like to ask you is whether you have any safe and approved methods for capturing email subscribers without revealing the premium content to users before they subscribe? We are considering the following approaches: First Click Free for Web Search - This is an opt in service by Google which is widely used for this sort of approach and which stipulates that you have to let the user see the first item they click on from the listings, but can put up the subscriber only overlay afterwards. No Index, No follow - if we simply no index, no follow the individual deal pages where the overlay is situated, will this remove the "cloaking offense" and therefore the risk of a penalty? Partial View - If we show one or two paragraphs of text from the deal page with the rest being covered up by the subscribe now lock up, will this still be cloaking? I will write up my first SEOMoz post on this once we have decided on the way forward and monitored the effects, but in the meantime, I welcome any input from you guys.
Technical SEO | | Red_Mud_Rookie0