Google places page related places links to competitor

[Bristolweb]

I noticed on a lot of Google places pages i create for my clients Google seems to put related places links at the bottom of the page which links directly to their competitors.

how can i  remove control  or avoid these links  been placed?

Also any tips on improving the places page would be greatly appreciated

thanks

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bristolweb!

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your very good question. Here's the deal - there is nothing you can do to control or alter this for your clients. 'Related Places' is a built-in feature of Place Pages - Google thinks it is helpful to the user to show him similar businesses nearby. I sympathize with the feeling that this isn't exactly fair to a business owner to advertise his competitors on his own Place Page, but so long as Google feels it is worth it to do so, the Related Places section is here to stay.

You ask for help improving a Place Page...would you like to link to a specific Place Page or are you asking for general advice? Please, let me know.

Miriam

[coremediadesign]

Did you create Google Local for those clients?

I had a similar situation with one of my clients before we took over their SEO and the reason for this most likely (as we still don't know for sure) was that they were optimising their content for one of the keywords, which was a Branded Keyword of the competitor. I believe that must've confuse the search engines and caused the problem eventually with displaying the incorrect map.