I am currently perplexed over a client's search results. They are an established company and well known in their field. (Unfortunately, I am not comfortable providing a link or their name.) The company is a consulting firm and let's assume it is an accounting firm, which it is not. When you search on BSC Accounting the results give them the first result but the next 18 results are around education - BSc Accounting. Consider the DA on the site is 34 and the PA for homepage is 39.

Is there a chance that when someone is searching on accounting firms that having the BSC in the name skews what they are able to rank for? Forget about searches for their exact name, I am more interested in thoughts as to how the BSC effects general searches for their specialties.

If you read above you will see that it has been removed.

This is what many are using instead: http://isearchfrom.com/

Thanks, I think it just adds more info. Seems to be a bug at the Google. OR if you are more into the conspiracy realm, it is some surreptitious way of tracking where we think we may want to be if we lose our memory on a day we are logged in....

Best

Hello Miriam,

Thanks for posting the "We is soooo Good" blurb from Yelp. I hesitated to do so. The issue with overstating is it comes off as less than genuine and Yelp way overstates. I know that when there are review issues that are pointed out, you can talk with your rep, show them a problem, and they in some way deal with it. It is disingenuous for Yelp to say there is zero relationship between Yelp Sales and other departments.

1. Agreed on the close manual management. The issue is it is a ___ management firm. (Left blank as I prefer not to identify them here as I am in ongoing talks on a major issue and at this time there has been positive change so far on that side.) They have changed some management, but that should not allow you to carte blanche say: "We got rid of the bad actors and the new team are all well dressed. Take down bad reviews." Obviously, Yelp would have no way of knowing the new "team" will be any different. Also, if that works for one, it should be done for anyone with a bad review.

2. On this, you know that I would not cut and paste. I did make multiple negative reviews, but all were different. Given they are the same complaint, one could say spun, but they were spun by me in a way that was, IMO, legit. The one thing here is they could say that the ones where I am not located are not reasonable and I would say OK. But, they should have the courage to tell their Reviewers, members, etc. that we took this down for this reason. Or, with someone who posts reviews and assists their property in doing so, at least realize that if you posted 50 plus reviews with all types of stars, good bad and mediocre, etc. that it is unlikely you have now become a review spammer.

I will share whatever I receive from Yelp, but I am not holding out any hope they will even respond. On other much less problematic issues, I have emailed, used contact form, etc. and failed to get even a response.

Thanks Miriam,

Best

Miriam, 
This is why Moz is still worlds apart from so many online organizations whether SEO, SEM, directories, SaaS, Etc. Honesty. Frankly, I would not care if Yelp showed some favoritism to their paying clients: Just let me know you will occasionally work with a paying client to ameliorate a bad situation. (Yes, even keep it a bit obtuse. Then at least it is no harm no foul...somewhat.) If more companies would understand that you selling a trillion in whatever does not always have to be negatively affected by doing the right thing.

At some point we all must ask ourselves as business people: What are we going to stand for. To this day, I give Rand and the Moz crew huge credit for all they did to get their beliefs out early and to stand by them when it was surely not expedient. Just be nice.

Thanks,

I would just really have to see the test and the data. Here is the issue as I see it:

First, someone who already knows the name of the site and is going there is a given they are ok with it. They are not searching for it per se (even though many still use search to go to a site), so CTR would be a given.

So, we are speaking of those searching for a given product. Let's say Oatmeal Cookies.

Assuming someone created Almond Oatmeal cookies and there were two people selling them: One bought the Almond-Oatmeal-Cookies.com domain and the other bought the AlmondOatmealCookies.com domain.

If I am the searcher for these cookies my friend, Doug, just PM'd me about, am I going to click on AlmondOatmealCookies.com if it is ranked third over the hyphenated version at two or four? Are most people going to do that for that one reason? I just have a hard time grasping that, but I learned a long time ago that in marketing never assume people are like you.

This also may be one of those that EGOL talks about where it is dealing with the minutiae of SEO that has very little impact on the result. I would allow that your CTR issue is the first time someone has made me think more about the issue. The, its spammy, argument is just not thought out enough for me.

As usual, all the best to you and yours!