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My client had 17,500 links pointing to his site from Yellowpages.com and it caused a algorithm penalty to there local search results.  Here is a sample of the links. Now notice that each link contains a different city. My client city is Tacoma WA. We are positive this destroyed there NAP because they went from first place in the Google 3 Pac to not being the Google 3 pack at all, but for the same keyword they are number 3 in organics. When you go to Bing they still maintain there local search rankings.

<a class="sort">Links</a>
http://reliance.yellowpages.com/tacoma-wa/mip/phils-auto-care-8439833?lid=1001611723702
http://solarus.yellowpages.com/tacoma-wa/mip/phils-auto-care-8439833?lid=1001612521758
http://www.yellowpages.com/algona-wa/truck-service-repair
http://www.yellowpages.com/arlington-wa/engine-rebuilding-exchange
http://www.yellowpages.com/arlington-wa/mip/integrity-auto-care-480010482
http://www.yellowpages.com/arlington-wa/mission-motors
http://www.yellowpages.com/arlington-wa/semi-truck-repair

These links are coming from when a business advertises with Yellowpages.com. I have seen evidence that they are destroying one of my clients NAP's because each link is coming from a different city that the local business doesn't belong to them. Have your client Stop advertising with them immediately and disavow all links just to be safe.

One of the intriguing things about SEO is being able to reverse engineer your competitors rankings because all the technical  information is available for those who know where to look.

I recently looked at my Dashboard and saw that one of my competitors had dropped 10,000 links.

The questions is why?

Google algorthm change?

Blackhat Penalty?

Something else.?

Here are the numbers, I am going to lieave my own clients site out because his numbers are pathetic.

www.Leafly(dot)com   50.4k Links  Down 10k

www.thcfinder(dot)com  1,530 links Down 71

www.weedmaps(dot)com 64,000k links  Up 1.5K

Is it just me or is that a lot of links to loose over one indexing period?

All clients are skeptical when it comes to SEO. Because they get bombarded daily with emails from India promising first place on Google. Basically you have to A show them a client you did SEO for and have them Google it for themselves or you have to do one keyword for them for free to convince them of the value.

After further looking at his search results I noticed that his keyword that he was number 1 for the last 3 years. Tacoma Auto Care was still showing high up in the organic results. Number 4 behind 2 yelp results and one other company. But he was still number 10 to 15 in the 3-pack results for the same keyword. This leads me to conclude that the Yellowpage links destroyed his NAP with all the different cities they added. See picture attached

Also when you use the same search terms in BING there is NO LOCAL Penalty.

Bing Tacoma Auto Care

Bing Tacoma Auto Repair

www.philsautocareinc.com shows up number 1 and number 3 respectively.

Now we all know how to knock out our local competition in Google Don't We?

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Thanks for the response. The company Philsautocareinc.com has had stead rankings for 3 years. They hired this new company www.effectivewebsolutions.biz to do their website site in April of 2016. They took 3  months to build the website and then started SEO work around July August 2016. The reason I focused on the Yellowpage links is because www.effectivewebsolutions.biz has the exact same links pointing to there site. So i know they are the ones who did it. Since this business physical address is in Tacoma wouldn't googles algorithms still see the different cities in the Yellowbook links as spam? Just saying.

Recently a former client of man called me up and said that his rankings for his Auto Repair Shop in Tacoma WA had dropped and he had his worst November in sales since they hired this new SEO firm to rebuild their website and provide SEO. Of course the first thing I did was check his back links and sure enough there are 22 links from Yellowbook.com all pointed to different cities

I checked the SEO firms website and they and they had 4 links from YellowBook. The problem was the links from YellowBook were all optimized from different cities. I am pretty sure Google penalized my client for the unnatural back-links to YellowCrook.com. Does the community agree that these links caused the penalty? I included the links in pictures on my LinkedIn Profile.  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-study-how-google-erased-60-percent-revenue-from-small-meshach?published=t

Here are the links.

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| http://www.yellowpages.com/seattle-wa/automotive |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/seattle-wa/auto-transmission | Auto Transmission in Seattle, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/kent-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Kent, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/seattle-wa/truck-service-repair | Truck Service Repair in Seattle, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/lower-queen-anne-seattle-wa/truck-service-repair | Truck Service Repair in Lower Queen Anne Seattle, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/bonney-lake-wa/mechanic | Mechanic in Bonney Lake, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/seattle-wa/auto-mechanics | Auto Mechanics in Seattle, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/shoreline-wa/auto-transmission | Auto Transmission in Shoreline, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/kent-wa/auto-repair | Auto Repair in Kent, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/lynnwood-wa/auto-transmission | Auto Transmission in Lynnwood, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/monroe-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Monroe, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/auburn-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Auburn, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/redmond-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Redmond, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/matthews-beach-seattle-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Matthews Beach Seattle, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/kent-wa/auto-transmission | Auto Transmission in Kent, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/monroe-wa/truck-service-repair | Truck Service Repair in Monroe, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/wilburton-bellevue-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Wilburton Bellevue, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/laurelhurst-seattle-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Laurelhurst Seattle, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/seattle-wa-98166/auto-oil-lube |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/gig-harbor-wa/auto-oil-lube | Auto Oil Lube in Gig Harbor, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/northeast-seattle-seattle-wa/auto-repair-service | Auto Repair Service in Northeast Seattle Seattle, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/auburn-wa/auto-transmission |
| http://www.yellowpages.com/burien-wa/automotive | Automotive in Burien, Washington with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com |