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Hey There,

Robert is giving some good advice. I wanted to ask for a clarification. Does your business solely rent floor scrubbers, or are you saying it vends multiple products/services?

Hi Donald

Woops! My mistake. I see your client is a real estate attorney, not a real estate firm. So sorry about that. Interestingly, as far as Local SEO goes, some of the same issue apply in terms of both industries commonly featuring multi-partner practices and that rolling out as citation confusion. But, you say you've done a good job of managing their citations and want advice beyond the average checklist of local search basics, I have two thoughts:

1. I'm hoping you may get some more feedback from community members with legal clients. I haven't personally worked with more than a handful of lawyers over the years and don't have any tips that would be stunners specific to the industry.

2. Are you aware of NiftyLaw? They're a subsidiary of NiftyMarketing.com, owned by Mike Ramsey. You might comb through their blog (http://niftylaw.com/blog/) to see if they are giving away any gems, or, if the client is really having a hard time, you might even consider consulting with them.

Hope this helps!

Oh, that's very kind of you to say, Chad. It's always my pleasure! Seems like you've got some great opportunities ahead for some interesting content dev.

Hi Brian,

Unless you are able to share the identity of the website, it's going to be shooting in the dark as to what might be going on. You've categorized this as 'local'. Could you be targeting keywords that don't actually relate to your client's geographic location? For example, a business outside city limits trying to rank for a geo+keyword term inside the city.

Everything cool with Google Search Console? No warnings?

How competitive is the market/keyword phrase you are targeting?

Hey Chad!

Interesting topic. Two thoughts on this:

1. I'm assuming that the optimization for the street names is already baked into your client's real estate listings. As in 3 BD/2BR Home at 123 Turtle Creek Drive. Right? It certainly makes sense to me that you would optimize the home listing pages with their street as well as their city.

2. I'd give some thought to 'near me' searches as well (as in 'homes for sale near me') which Google stated doubled in 2015. This phenomenon is largely tied to local pack results, but, of course, it's forbidden to build Google My Business listings for 'for sale' properties. Nevertheless, there could possibly be some organic opportunity to begin competing for near me phrases for the small area your client serves. Content development + optimization + link earning would be key here.

Hope this helps!

Hi Donald,Great question. 2-3 months may not be a good time estimate to give a client for moving the local needle. Bernadette wisely raises the issue of citation management. Have you been doing this? Real estate agencies often have very convoluted citation scenarios due to the continual arrival of new agents, old ones retiring, duplicate listings, multi-practitioner listings sharing details (like phone numbers) that they shouldn't.

If you've not yet delved into citation management yet, it's very important to do so, with the understanding that:

1. Structured citation building is not typically a competitive difference maker in tough markets, because tough competitors will likely already have large, clean structured citation profiles. So, basically, you'll be playing catch-up if you've not yet engaged in managing citations.

2. Competitive difference maker or not, inconsistent citations are lead-killers. Misdirecting customers via inaccurate information is not good for business. And, of course, inconsistencies are believed to weaken the 'trust' Google feels in the data they are finding about your business.

3. Duplicate clean-up can sometimes move the needle in the local packs, so this would be a high priority task.

I'd recommend going through our Local SEO Checklist for other ideas. Hope this helps!

I admire how you are trying to think of creative ways to connect yourself to other businesses. If the other local businesses were home-service related, like:

• Window washers

• Chimney sweeps

• Gutter cleaners

• Landscape maintenance companies

• HVAC

..or similar services that surround maintaining a clean, functional home, then I could see you featuring them as a bonus service to your clients. You might even come to co-promotional deals with some of these (10% off your cleaning service for a month + 10% off a chimney inspection). In this scenario, there is a common thread tying all of the businesses together, that I'm just not seeing in the idea you are considering about wedding photographers and home cleaning/other startups.

Being a startup may galvanize the business community, but is unlikely to be seen as a desirable commonality by consumers. So, best advice here, you've got to find connections that make sense in terms of both geography AND industry. Going with other home service-related businesses would be natural, and provided the content you create is meaningful (not just a list of links) could prove useful to consumers who might feel confidence in businesses your company recommends if they trust your business. Hope this helps!

Hi Cleanily,

Thanks for coming back with further info. You are right ... from a public perspective these good features of your business aren't really going to be a jumping off point for connecting you to other businesses. Sometimes, cleaning companies have something particular about the way they operate (like green practices) that can hook them into a larger web of businesses with similar goals/customers, but in your case, things look pretty standard.

You could do features of businesses you clean locally, but honestly, I'm not seeing big connection between someone learning that a cleaning service cleans X restaurant and people wanting to then eat at that restaurant, or for the restaurant wanting to link to your cleaning website because you've featured them. That's just not a natural flow.

Thinking ...

You know something that always gets me? Businesses with dirty restrooms. My gosh, I really, really don't like that. Not to mention, there are groups of people that are in the position of urgently needing to find a restaurant while away from home. These might include:

• Travelers

• People with medical conditions (IBS, ulcerative colitis, bladder troubles)

• Families with small children, out on the town.

These people often find themselves at the mercy of gas stations, which are often appalling.

This may be kind of an off-the-wall idea, but what if you did some sort of social outreach mapping out the cleanest restrooms in the towns you serve. You have some inside information on this, because of which businesses you serve (that is, if you clean their restrooms) and you could expand on that surveying/photographing local restrooms, make a map and award the top restrooms the 'Brand Name Cleaning Company Stamp of Cleanliness' or something like that. I don't know if the businesses that are featured might be excited enough to link back to you, but you could generate some social mentions. It would associate your brand with both the local area and with cleanliness (things you want). You might even make it onto local blogs/local news with this promotion.

Interestingly, dirtiness made it into a recent survey GetFiveStars took of things that cause customers to complain. Another found that 80% of patrons would avoid a restaurant if it has a dirty restroom. And, you have only to search the term yelp restaurant dirty bathroom to see how repelled consumers are by a lack of cleanliness. In other words, it's something people feel very strongly about and your business, as an authority on cleanliness, might possibly step in and provide some help.

Maybe you won't go with this idea, but maybe the brainstorming process will help you think of something similar. I'm honestly not seeing a huge opportunity for some of the more standard linkbuilding relationships one can often turn to, so, in cases like yours, something outside-the-box can be required.

I'm going to ask one of my team members to pop in to talk to you about assessing DA using Moz Pro to answer the other part of your question.

Hmm, housecleaning. Thinking about that.

In the meantime ... a couple of questions:

1. Do you have Moz Pro?

2. Is there anything particular about your cleaning service ... like green housecleaning or some other distinguishing factor?

You're welcome, Meier. So sorry, but I'd not be able to make a guess as to how your competitor acquired links. You might want to consider consulting privately with a good SEO consultant about that, to whom you can show the exact situation in confidence.

While we're on the topic of Yelp, if you're looking for some pro tips, I really enjoyed this video. You might watch it and jot down notes:

http://localu.org/blog/guest-video-top-10-yelp-tips-small-business-2016/

Hi There!

I agree with this advice from Chris, "identify local businesses that compliment yours and delve into ways you can jointly generate interest."

In terms of seeing DA, do you have the Moz Bar installed? That will show you the DA of any page.

I would also suggest that you think of this topically. Think of a topic/keyword that relates to your industry/geography and look it up in Google. See what is ranking well in Google for that term and then see if there is a chance to build a relationship with the highest visibility players, if they are of high quality (i.e. not dumb spam ranking well) and could be related to your business in some way.

The relationship is very important. For example, let's say yours is a dog walking business. You might see a natural relationship between your business and:

• Local vets

• Local obedience trainers

• Local pet supply/feed stores

• Local Canine Companion-type organizations

• Local programs that take dogs to visit elders, people recovering from illness, etc.

• Local dog parks

• Other types of local parks where you are allowed to take dogs on/off-leash

• Dog-friendly restaurants and lodgings in the area

• Local colleges offering veterinary courses

All of the above meet the related geography/industry criteria and could be featured to add meaningful content to your website that might be helpful to your dog-loving audience. If you write excellent content, including reviewing these places/services, photographing them, and engaging the business owners where appropriate for an interview, you will be creating a valuable resource that the businesses may well link to. There may also be some opportunities in that quick list of mine for co-promotional events between your business and another local business.

This approach makes much more sense than a dog walker attempting to correlate his business with chiropractors, autobody shops or window washers, just because they are local. Ask yourself: is my audience looking for pet-related services going to be interested in what I'm building? If so, the relationship makes sense. If not, likely best to skip it.

You might also get some good ideas for meaningful outreach here: https://moz.com/blog/using-the-barnacle-seo-method-to-prove-local-community-awareness

Hope this helps!

Hey Bob,

Organic SEO isn't really my area, but if that niche is really niche, being stuck on page 40 after several months of work raises a red flag for me. Have you dug into Google Search Console to be sure there isn't a problem with a site?

You're welcome, Omer!

Hi Meisha,

If Vijay's suggestion doesn't prove to be the root of the issue, it's important to know that Google can pull info for both the first and second lines of your organic listing from a variety of sources. If that's what's happening in your case, and the data they are pulling is wrong, you need to search Google for the source of that data and correct it there, in hopes that Google will eventually update what they are showing in your second line.

It's my very great pleasure!

Hi Susannah,

You're very welcome! Until the client can get a separate phone number for Location B, don't create the GMB listing or any other citations for it. Hopefully, you can share Google's guidelines with them and help them see the good sense in complying with Google's wishes on this. In addition to being guideline compliant, unique phone numbers greatly lessen the risk of accidental listing merges, so pretty much any multi-location business needs to make a basic investment in a unique number for each locale.

Hi Hector!

Just want to add a proviso to Sean's good advice. As it looks like you are in the HVAC business, I'm guessing yours is a Service Area Business (meaning you go to customers instead of them coming to you). In that case, Google wants you do add your physical address in the Google My Business dashboard, but take the steps they provide to hide that address via the text in the dashboard that refers to serving customers at their locations. Google wants all SABs to hide their addresses. If your competitors aren't doing this, it's either because they a) have a physical location customers come to, b) are unaware of Google's SAB guidelines, or, c) they know the guidelines but aren't complying with them.

Here are Google's guidelines. Hope this helps!

Hey Meisha,

Where exactly are you seeing these amenities listed? As the second line in your organic search result? In a branded local result? A Google local finder view? Local knowledge panel?

Hi Susannah,

Google My Business listings relate entirely to physical locations. So, if you have 2 physical locations, you are eligible for 2 GMB listings. However, the practice should definitely assign a unique phone number to the second location, as Google wants the number you list to connect as directly as possible to the location.

Having the same business name is no problem at all, and, in fact, you should not add any modifying keywords to either name (like a city name). List the name exactly as it appears in the real business world for both listings.

Finally, in regards to web pages: it's ideal to create a unique landing page on the website for each of the physical locations. So, the GMB listing for Location A would link to the landing page on the company site for Location A, and the GMB listing for Location B would link to the landing page on the site for Location B. Location landing pages represent very powerful opportunities to target content to a specific set of users. Make the content unique and as helpful as possible, and don't forget to put the name, address and phone of the business at the top of its respective landing page. Finally, be sure the citation set you build for Location A links to landing page A, and the same goes for Location B.

You can read more about landing pages here on the Moz Blog: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages

Hope this helps!

Hi Omer,

Adding modifiers of any kind to the business name is against Google's guidelines. Your client is actually right that having city names in the business name can increase local rankings, but it's considered spam to do so and businesses that are ranking via this tactic are at risk of red flags being raised at Google if they notice it, if a competitor reports the company, etc. So, while your customer is right that this tactic can increase rank, it isn't really worth it to spam Google.

Hi James,

If Google is not showing a 3 pack for your most important term, but, rather, is treating it like a branded result with only one business in it, there's not a ton you can do about that. Is there any chance you're able to share the name of your company and term you're trying to rank for? If not, it's okay, but if you can, it will help the community target their suggestions to your specific case.

Hi Brian!

So, normally, yes, you'd just put that in an image, but as you've mentioned accessibility issues, I'm not sure. For example, you might want to be sure that people with visual impairments or other challenges can access this information. If this is an important consideration, then you could be sure that your physical address is clearly marked-up in Schema in a variety of places on your website, and that you list the P.O. box as a mailing address and don't mark it up. Will this be 100% safe ... unfortunately, no. There is a chance NAP confusion could arise, but I'm afraid I've not dealt with a case exactly like this to be able to say what % of risk there would be. An image pretty much nullifies risk, but other methods may carry some.

It would be nice if we could get some feedback from community members who are expert at accessibility. I think you've asked a good and important question!

Hey James!

Hopefully you can come back with some clarification of terminology so that our community can help you get to the root of th matter

Hey Meier,

Neat topic! If the competitors' local profiles have a high page authority, links are a good guess. This isn't really my area of expertise and I'm hoping you'll get abundant community feedback, but it could be that the competitors are doing barnacle SEO. Are you familiar with that term? If not, check out: http://www.searchinfluence.com/2011/01/barnacle-seo-original/. Have you done a link audit of the competitor?

I'm referring specifically to page authority, here, of course, which is not the same thing as where a business ranks within a given platform like Yelp.

And, neither the page authority of a local business listing nor its internal ranking on a third party platform = Google local pack rankings, which are believed to be made up of several hundred factors. Organic rank definitely does influence local pack rank, but there are so many other factors to take into consideration, including (as you've pointed out) spam.

You're welcome, Brian, and I hope you'll be able to find a consultant who can offer a second opinion. Sounds like you are trying to save your client a big headache!

Hey Brian

It's totally understandable when it's not possible to share a client's domain in public. We do have some really talented folks in the Local SEO space here, but if the client is trying break into a competitive legal pack (those can be so tough!), chances are you are going want to do a complete audit of their Local SEO. A paragraph or two may fail to generate the thorough feedback and strategy your client will need. I'm hoping a couple of suggestions will help:

1. Here is our Local SEO Checklist, which you can go through bit by bit to identify any problems that might be holding the client back.

2. Here is our 2015 Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which pools industry knowledge regarding the elements that are believed to have the greatest impact on rank. Your client will need to excel at all of these to compete.

3. Here is our recommended Local SEO companies list. On that list, I know NiftyMarketing to be particularly skilled in the legal industry. In fact, they have a unique business called niftylaw.com that specializes in marketing for the legal industry. You or your client may need to consult with a real heavy-hitter in this area, given the competitiveness of your market.

I hope these resources will prove helpful!

Thanks so everyone in our great community for the helpful responses to Tabassum. Tabassum, feel free to ask further, detailed questions if you're not seeing an answer in the above.

Oh, man! Not this:

Google Business and that the reviews "may" return once the bug is worked out.

It has been 4 years since Google's last major review fiasco. Hope this doesn't turn into round 2. Thanks for mentioning, David, and sorry Google Business Manager is giving you a headache.

Hi Calico!

So appreciate you returning with a progress update on this. I see what you see. Kind of a pain to have to pay for visibility you previously enjoyed for free, but at least there is something you can do

I love the spirit of experimentation, but it's important to remember that any failure to represent your address exactly as it appears in the real world is a violation of Google's guidelines.

Eric, yes, Joy's post is super! Thank you so much for thinking to link out to it. Very relevant to this discussion.

Hi There!

Thanks so much for sharing the details of your experiment. I agree that recommending that clients change their address is not advisable, but your experiment definitely shores up the explanation that Google is filtering based on shared addresses. Some Local SEOs are theorizing that Google's aim is to improve result diversity, and thus, quality of their results. I could see that being true in some cases, but in CalicoKitty's case in this thread, I think Google is actually delivering less helpful, rather than more helpful results.

So appreciate your contributions to this thread!

Hi Calico,

Clicking on the 'more' link at the bottom of the 3 pack to go to the local finder, are you still only seeing 1 business come up in the list at your address? When I checked yesterday, I was seeing 4 different companies, including yours, coming up at that address. Curious what you are seeing in the local finder today.

Hey Wbmsmet, great video link. The sound is a little wonky, but I recommend anyone experiencing this filter take a free hour and watch it. Very informative!

Cross posting just to be sure CalicoKitty sees ... I think the filter may have changed. Check out: https://moz.com/community/q/community-discussion-did-your-google-listing-suddenly-disappear#reply_350579

I am seeing signs that the filter may be letting up. CalicoKitty - I'm seeing your listing reappearing for 'fishing charters cape canaveral' again in both the 3 pack and Local Finder. Can you confirm?

Thanks, David

Hi Z!

If done properly, practitioner listings should not typically have a detrimental effect on the business' local pack rankings. Google's guidelines allow for their creation, and, up until about a week or so ago, these are the provisos I would make to ensure that you're managing this scenario correctly:

1. Be sure you've got a unique phone number for each dentist at which they are directly contactable, and that this number is being used for them across the board (on the websites, citations, social profiles, etc.)

2. Be sure you've got a unique landing page on each of the websites for each dentist, featuring their complete Name, Address, Phone number and other details. Be sure their citations link to the associated website landing page, rather than the homepage.

3. Be sure you are strictly adhering to Google's naming conventions, as specified in the guidelines: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en It's incredible how many listings don't adhere to these, and Google spells it out in black-and-white how multi-practitioners should name their listings.

So far, so good, but then Google made a strange move about a week ago that I've covered in detail here. Recommend you read the whole thread, as it may be highly pertinent to your dental client. Basically, in a nutshell, Google appears to be filtering out businesses located at the same location that share the same category. So, in our example in that thread, a Moz member who owns a fishing charter company is being filtered out of the results because other fishing charters (same category) are located at the same address.

Your scenario particularly interests me because it rings bells of a practice I believe I recall Linda Buquet advocating some years back of practitioner listings (dentists, lawyers, etc.) not sharing the same categories. It has been a few years since I've heard Linda address this, and I'd love to know her thoughts on this given this recent Google change.

I think you have a very interesting opportunity here to do some experimentation with the filter if either of your client's practices and associated practitioners were previously all ranking highly.. Here's how I'd do that:

1. Do a Google search for whatever the category + city is that pertains to the dental practice (this might be something like 'Dentist San Diego'). See if the filter is being applied so that only the business or only one of the practitioners is coming up for that term in the local finder view you get to when you click on the 'more' link at the bottom of the local 3-pack. As described in the other discussion I've linked to, zoom in to see if the missing business or missing practitioners show up.

2. Then, what I'd experiment with is whether changing the category for one of the practitioners (changing it from Dentist to something like Pediatric Dentist) affects the results. You'd want to give it a few day and check back. See if changing that category then allows the practitioner to show up at the non-zoomed level when it was previously being filtered out.

In sum, practitioner listings have not been a problem historically when managed correctly, but with the recent filtering rolling out (which may be temporary or permanent), some new questions have just arisen. These issues could possibly be resolved by changing categories, where possible, but experimentation is needed to see how doing so might impact results.

I would love to hear back from you if you do embark on such an experiment, and your question has also made me wonder what Linda Buquet (an expert in Dental Local SEO) might say about shared categories for practitioner listings in 2016. Great topic!

Hi CalicoKitty,

Yes, you are bringing an excellent practical perspective on exactly why this change of Google's is not serving the user's needs. And that's particularly telling that you come up as a top rated business but are not being featured as a top ranking business unless you filter/zoom the results.

I agree, Adwords is a band-aid while we see how this shakes out, and I do think it's worth it to contact Google directly to make the case that they are not delivering relevance. Really appreciate you sharing your experience with this.

Wishing you good luck! Spammers really give me the blues.

There is nothing quite so alarming as seeing your business suddenly vanish from the Google local packs/local finder. We got first wind of this when Moz community member CalicoKitty2000 posted that their fishing charter business in Florida had abruptly stopped showing after enjoying historical high local rankings for a very long time. Their company is Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters. Their organic rankings were still a-okay, and as I was digging around trying to rule out common problems like guideline violations, malware, penalties, I was lucky enough to come across a totally separate discussion of the same startling phenomenon at Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum.

To observe this phenomenon for yourself, look up 'fishing charters cape canaveral'. In the local pack, click the 'more places' link to get to the local finder. Observe what is in the local finder view, including the fact that only one business is located at 505 Glen Cheek Dr. Then, zoom in on the map, and you will see CalicoKitty2000's company, Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters, magically reappear in the results. You will ALSO notice that something like 8 other businesses, in addition to Sea Leveler, located at 505 Glen Cheek Dr., are also suddenly present in the local finder at that zoomed-in view.

What appears to be happening here is that Google has made a change in which they will only show a single business at a given address within the same category. This is a major, major change that poses a very obvious problem for businesses like legal firms and medical practitioners who share the same building and category. Coworking spaces hosting a variety of same-specialty tech startups also come to mind.

Joy Hawkins (one of the smartest Local SEOs I know), posits this in addition to the shared building/shared category factors influencing this change:

"I believe Google is A/B testing at the moment which explains the crazy fluctuation we're still seeing daily on trackers like Algoroo"

Joy says she's planning to write an article about this soon, so be on the lookout for that if this has affected your business.

In the meantime, I have two thoughts:

1. This filter is so unfriendly to so many businesses, I would not be surprised to see it go away. However, it never hurts to create buzz/raise awareness. If you've been affected, you might want to post your example in Google's forum with a plea to Google to treat you more fairly. I would argue that it is NOT creating a good user experience for people seeking a doctor, a chiropractor or a fishing charter in a specific neighborhood to be shown only partial, single results. I know I'd rather know that there are 7-8 choices of fishing charters conveniently located in a building on a marina. After all, if one charter is all booked up for the day, I'd like to know that other companies are there to serve me, wouldn't you? I'd say this apparent filter makes results less relevant than more relevant. I find it particularly weird that our example business, Sea Leveler, is being filtered out given how far ahead of most competitors they are in terms of review count. Wouldn't you want to see the most-reviewed business first?

2. Hopefully, this filter is just a test, but for the sake of damage control in the meantime, this might be a good time to invest in some Adwords to replace your missing rankings (hey, Google, I hope this isn't your diabolical idea behind the change, a-hem!).

If you've been affected, please, study your SERPs and share with our community any clues you are seeing. We can all help one another survive Google's curve balls better when we share. I would love to hear of anything you are observing about this, and am particularly interested to know if you are seeing a rotation of businesses ranking at different times of day. For example, if Businesses A, B and C are all at 123 Main Street, is only business A ranking all the time at the non-zoomed level, or at some point in a given day, are B or C being given preferential treatment?

Please, share your findings!

Hey Again CalicoKitty

I started a discussion thread on the new filter here: https://moz.com/community/q/community-discussion-did-your-google-listing-suddenly-disappear

This issue is important enough to bring to the community's attention, I think, as so many businesses are being affected. You might want to keep an eye on that, and contribute anything else you notice. I'm hoping our community will pitch in with what they are seeing, too!

Hey CalicoKitty!

I totally get how bizarre and stressful this is. Can you provide a bit more detail regarding what the 505 vs. the 500 address is in relationship to your business? I would be inclined to actually sit tight on this for a couple of weeks to see if the behavior stops. It strikes me as totally untenable that Google would show only 1 doctor at a large medical practice, etc. Please, do explain to me about the 2 addresses you have and whether any other business is sharing the alternate address.

Good topic! So, the guidelines currently state:

• Ratings must be sourced directly from users.
• Don’t rely on human editors to create, curate or compile ratings information for local businesses. These types of reviews are critic reviews.
• Sites must collect ratings information directly from users and not from other sites.

My question is, is the service you are using publishing your reviews anyplace else but on your website? In other words, are the reviews posted on your site appearing anywhere else?

Newsflash on this. Thanks to the good folks over at the Local Search Forum, we have insight on this, Calico. Look up 'fishing charters cape canaveral' and then click on the map. In Google Maps, zoom in on the results and you'll see your listing reappear in the local finder. I was able to find you doing this.

Joy Hawkins is offering these thoughts:

1. I believe Google is A/B testing at the moment which explains the crazy fluctuation we're still seeing daily on trackers like Algoroo

2. I believe the criteria for the local search results filter has changed and is now filtering businesses in the same category in the same building. I have a client in NYC who is popping in and out of the 3-pack and every time he disappears, the guy in his building who offers the same service appears and vice versa.

I'm a member at that forum and am going to link to our example of your business here, to add to the examples Local SEOs are looking at to try to establish a pattern. This is not a solution, yet, but we are at least on the right track now. Highly recommend you read the whole thread over there and look at the examples of other businesses experiencing this. Hang in there!

****Heads-up CalicoKtity - feel free to skip this response and look at my next one. I've figured out what happened to your listing!

Ah, okay, thank you for clarifying that. Some more questions/observations. Please note, I'm just reeling these off as I look:

1. From what I can see, your business is outside of the official boundaries of Cape Canaveral. Here's how Google outlines Cape Canaveral:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cape+Canaveral,+FL+32920/@28.3882309,-80.6241774,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x88e0a5ab39504c9b:0xbb0bb0f57a55d19e!8m2!3d28.3922182!4d-80.6077132

vs. your location which appears to be associated with Port Canaveral:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sea+Leveler+Sport+Fishing+Charters/@28.4086071,-80.6143363,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xb376f8aa9ed43c09!8m2!3d28.4086071!4d-80.6143363

Is your official USPS address Cape or Port Canaveral? I am asking, because I see that the website and the GMB listing both list you as being in Cape Canaveral, but for whatever reason, your map marker is outside of Google's designation of that city's borders. Can you let us know what the scenario is with the address, please?

2. As I mentioned earlier, there was a local pack shakeup, and some spam seems to have reemerged in some packs. So, it could be that this is impacting you. Did you read the articles I had shared?

3. Hmm, yeah, I'm concerned about what you're experiencing, looking at what is ranking. Your competitors for the search 'fishing charter cape canaveral' are all located along that strip of shoreline that I guess is Port Canaveral, so if this is the cluster/centroid Google associates with this search, you SHOULD be ranking amongst these competitors. Have you received any notifications from Google, have you seen anything notifications in Google Search Console, or anything like that? I'm guessing not, but just checking. You are definitely absent from the local finder results, as far as I can see, and I believe there is genuine cause for concern about this.

4. The advice you got from the Google rep sounds totally useless to me. There reps sometimes give really poor answers Please, look at your edit history in your Google My Business dashboard (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3480441?hl=en) to see if you see any edits there. Let me know exactly what you see.

5. As the Google rep was so unhelpful, I highly recommend post in Google's Forum (https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-My-Business/ct-p/GMB#) in hopes that a TC will be able to take an internal look at what happened. I understand, your business is on the line here, so I'm making this suggestion that you plead for help there.

Feel free to keep coming back here with what you learn. This is pretty mysterious and I know how important it is to your business to figure out what happened.

Okay, thanks for that helpful clarification. So, this SEO company is working in clear violation of Google's guidelines, which state:

_Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location. _

So, as far as Google goes, please follow the guidelines provided in this great article by Joy Hawkins for combating spam: http://www.joyannehawkins.com/ultimate-guide-fighting-spam-google-maps/

Linkedin offers this: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/61664/reporting-fake-profiles?lang=en but you may need to dig deeper.

This resource may help connect you to the support for a variety of other platforms: http://www.reengageconsulting.com/be-where-your-customers-are-with-local-business-listings/

Now, all this being said, it seems like you might want to get legal advice in this matter. I'm not qualified to give that in any way, but it seems like a cease and desist-type letter to the SEO company might get them to do the work of removing all of this spam, rather than the burden being on your shoulders. Hope this helps, and sorry for the frustration of this situation.

Hi There!

Just to clarify, you are saying that your client is the only business located at this address and that this other company is NOT located there. Is that right? And is your client also an SEO firm, or are they in a different category entirely?

Hi There,

Can you please clarify what you mean by this:

On my knowledge panel, it says "Fishing Charter in Port Canaveral, Florida"

Are you saying you created a Google My Business listing with that as the business title, instead of your legal business name?

Hi Meier,

Hmm, I'm not aware of a plugin that auto-generates links to all your review profiles. Maybe someone else in our community knows of one? However, just for fun and inspiration, check out this page: http://barbaraoliverandco.com/reviews-testimonials/

If that were my client, I'd put the asks higher up on the page, but this is Mike Blumenthal's client so I won't second guess him

Also, be sure you are reading the review guidelines of each platform you're planning to showcase before you move ahead.