Spam in search engine results for company brand name
-
Hi,
I'm having a strange problem with a certain comapny.
When you Google their brand name the first 8 results or so are related - their site, Google+ page, Twitter etc. The rest of the results are completely unrelated to the site and much of it is in another language and looks really spammy.
According to the site owner until recently the first 50-60 results were related - mostly local results, press releases, and franchise companies listing his business. They don't have a great link profile but that shouldn't have them dropping out of the results, especially since they're still ranking in the top 1-8 positions.
Here's the strangest part: the company name is Libertana. All the spammy results are not so much spammy, they're related to the syllable "na". Examples:
- Ivanyukite-Na Mineral Data
- įt$koka!na's sounds on SoundCloud - Hear the world's sounds
- Bosiniya na Herizegovina - Wikipedia
What on earth is going on? Why would they rank for the last syllable of their name?
-
Perhaps a competitor or hacker are trying to displace them from the search results? One of the 'spam' results has "2,427 links to this URL from the past 32 days" according to Open Site Explorer - have you checked to see if any of that anchor text is the company name? I don't have full access to Moz at the moment so can't see.
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 really using unlinked brand and related mentions as a ranking factor?
Hi Moz community, Seems like Bing already confirmed that they are using link-less mentions for the ranking graph and some SEO experts believe if Google also employing the same in their Algo....Can anybody please confirm and share your thoughts on this? Thanks
Branding | | vtmoz0 -
SEO for Facebook's search bar?
Hey everyone! Had a quick question for ya'. Does anyone know if there are currently SEO tactics that are in place to help a company's Facebook page rank in their search bar? For example: When I search "Idaho Auctions" into the facebook search bar, there's a multitude of results - ranging from groups, to events, to businesses. How do these get ranked above each other?
Branding | | TaylorRHawkins1 -
Two companies merging into a new website. How to merge two existing websites into a brand new website and preserve search rankings.
Brand A and Brand B are merging to form Brand C. Brand A has a great search presence (prominent rankings, answer boxes, and impressive organic traffic). Brand B has a good reputation in real life but their web presence was extremely weak (we've been helping with that over the past few months and it is improving). What are the steps we need to take? The previous domains from Brand A and Brand B are going away and we need to promote the newly minted Brand C website. This Q/A summarizes what we want to do but with one exception: They only discuss merging Brand A into BRand B and there is no Brand C.
Branding | | CommandPartners0 -
Re-Branding Website
Hi everyone! I'm currently in the process of re-branding a website, and am really worried about the SEO consequences of doing so... The site I'm working on has recently been seeing a large increase of organic search traffic (almost 25% each month for the past 3 months) and I want to do my best to avoid screwing that up in the process of changing the aesthetic of the site. A couple specific questions I have are: Does changing the stylesheet, but none of the on-page content affect SEO? Would condensing menu items (i.e. putting all services under 1 item named "services") have a positive or negative effect? Neither? Any advice, tips, or previous experiences on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Branding | | Derrald0 -
Press Release Company
I'm wanting to submit press releases to PRNewswire, BusinessWire and MarketWire.... but I dont want to take the time to fill out forms and fax them back, or pay the initial membership fees. Are there companies that just take the press release that you've written, and then send them out to these services? Where can I find such a company?
Branding | | JABacchetta0 -
Wrong company attribution on SERPs
Hello everyone, I have a client that is a GmbH (private company), however, when a user does a branded search, in the title tag of the first result appears a AG (publicly traded company) instead of a GmbH. What is curious in this situation is that there is a maps entry and in this case it shows the GmbH but only after the user clicks through. Question: Where is Google taking the AG from? (FYI AG isn't mentioned on the website, No odp tag, external links are also not influencing) Thank you for your answer Best Regards and a wonderful weekend Daniel Vareta
Branding | | DanielVareta0 -
Should Global Company List in Local Directories?
Hi All, I am the Web Marketing Manager for a small, yet global, company. I've just started working at this company and I am focusing a lot of attention right now on link building, as the company is not great there in comparison to competitors. So right now I'm submitting us to directories. My question is whether submitting to things like Yelp and the Google Local Business Directory make sense for a global company. I want the inbound links available from those sources, but I just want to make sure I'm not missing something in regards to this. i.e. a pissed off customer could leave a negative review about the company on Yelp. That doesn't worry me, because if a customer is pissed off and wants to vent online, they'll find somewhere to do it. Is there anything else related that I might be missing? Thanks, Ben Alvord
Branding | | Ben_Alvord0 -
Using mlm and 'scammy' websites to identify brand/reputation management opportunities
I think this almost warrants a youmoz post, but I was wondering if anyone has used MLM or 'shady' industry companies to see where they place their reputation/brand links to dominate the first 2-3 pages of google for things like 'company name + scam' 'company name + reviews'. On a side note what is your opinion of a company that goes to great lengths to create a very strong push to control those keywords? Would you recommend your clients dominate the first 2-3 pages with 'honest review about company x' and 'the truth about company x' fakeditorials? Do you guys think people see right through them. Take any MLM..for instance legal shield scam (not my company, but an MLM that I am very wary of) as professionals what do you think of their reputation management build out......what do you think consumers would see when they read this? is there such a thing as going to far to refute false claims and building sponsored reviews? I'm personally against doing sponsored reviews and spamming with them, but maybe I am naive.
Branding | | ilyaelbert1