It's definitely not a good idea. People don't like being deceived, and I imagine all of these pages have miserable bounce rates. As a user, imagine clicking on a search result thinking you're getting one company and you end up on the landing page of another. Definitely a poor user experience.

In Google's Quality Guidelines, one of the things they specifically mention is:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en

• "Don't deceive your users."

As for this site using the competitors names in their meta keywords (outdated) and their descriptions, I don't know if Google has a specific penalty to address that specific issue (maybe others will comment on that), but I do know that Google is looking for accurate information in page titles and other areas of the page to return relative results to searchers.

Overall, it's a bad practice unless done so for legitimate reasons (you are The NY Times writing about new owners of The Washington Post).

Additionally, there's an exception here for AdWords where you can buy a competitor's name and show up for searches in the paid search results. But I'm assuming you're referencing organic search results.

Hope that helps. I know it can be frustrating to see.

I'd love a better resource for this one also.

I know you're looking for something specific, but here are some worthwhile resources you could try if you haven't already:

• http://blog.kissmetrics.com
• http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33742/12-Revealing-Charts-to-Help-You-Benchmark-Your-Business-Blogging-Performance-NEW-DATA.aspx
• http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/library/studies/?cat=measure-and-analyze
• http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Future-of-Big-Data/Overview.aspx
• Google+ - follow people like Avinash Kaushik which will then lead you to a slew of other Analytics brains as well. They often post interesting stats they come across.

Some big research firms also have Internet Roundtables, for example, like the one JD Power & Associates has for the automotive industry.

You might also see if any research papers have been published by doing a scholarly search since programs such as Masters of Science in Analytics are growing.

You could also check out some of the Google Analytics Certified Partners' blogs.

Not knowing what sector you're in, you could be right in that there hasn't been a study specifically catering to it, but maybe you'd be able to pull in some applicable data from the resources above.

Beta version has been out for awhile. Curious to know what people think of Moz Analytics.

Personally, I'm having a hard time making the switch from Pro to Moz Analytics because I'm so used to the navigation and layout of Pro.

What does everyone else think of the new Moz Analytics? Advantages? Disadvantages?

Federico,

I do the same thing! I have been wondering if one day that option to switch back will eventually go away...

Hi Anthony,

Has the business claimed its Local+ page? Perhaps a verified listing would help. Also some downstream local citations could possibly give it a boost. Scott also has a great point about making your link profile look more natural too, even though it's completely justified to have lots of links on the company name.

-EEE3