How The HELL Is This Site Ranking So Well In Google Places?

[penn73]

When I do a search for this site it ranks number 2 on Google just below the official federation of master builders website for the keyword phase "builders in london"

this is the site http://bit.ly/Lypo8E which is a nasty looking blog which has nothing to do with builders and they don't even have an address anywhere on the site.

The only thing I can see is that they are sharing there address with a lot of other businesses and all of the citations from those other businesses are causing them to rank higher on Google places, but surely Google can't be that stupid right?

[Ecreativeworks]

Hi Umit

I took a look at that listing, and it is definitely shady, I can see why you want to know why they rank. To me it looks like they are gaming the places ago fairly hard. There are numerous things that the listing is doing that are possibly against guidelines.

The first is the name, "London Builders" it doesn't just have the location, but it is also a strong keyword variation. this keyword is then repeated in the description, and the url. Using the location in your name and description is against best practices, and can get you in trouble. However it is also extremely effective. While any one of these things wouldn't be enough to rank this high, all three could have that effect. Also, the onpage signals from the site are also reinforcing the ranking.

Frankly, the site looks incredibly spammy. Its a default wordpress template with a couple of posts over the last couple of years that use the keywords. Unfortunately its a example of some of the big weaknesses that the Google Places has right now. This looks like a case of a black or grey hat seo trying to rank a company in Google Places without the company having a actual website.

[riplash]

Something else that can affect Google Places positioning is proximity to the centre of the geographical area being searched. So for London, unfortunately, that's the City of London, right where this guy has a virtual office.

The near match keyphrase for the actual business name on Google Places must be helping them out hugely. There may be something in your theory about implied credibility, too, if other highly rated businesses share that address - though my money is on the business name/keyphrase being the main culprit here.

[penn73]

LOL, So I just have to buy a keyword domain and add it to Google places then I'll be ranking over 2000 competing companies in Google places? Wow

[Weerdboil]

The have their keyword in the domain and have added an address in Google places/maps.

[penn73]

While I'm sure those are all factors I do not believe for 1 second that it's as simple as that, but thank you for your reply.

I would test your theory but I'm pretty certain what you've said is not going to rank me number 2.

[automation.engineer]

They have included two of the three words in your 'key phrase' in the following:

• URL
• H1 Heading
• Body
• Link
• Image

Those are all things that Google looks at when considering relevance.

Because they have a relatively small amount of text, keyword density will rank the key phrase fairly high.