Using keywords instead of brand name on G+ to rank for local terms.
-
I noticed something this morning, when performing a search on Google UK for "Intensive driving courses southend" the first position is awarded to a driving school that is using exact match keywords instead of brand name on their G+ page to rank for local terms. See this for yourself here: https://www.google.co.uk/#q=intensive+driving+courses+southend
Until then, my site had held position 1 for this term for well over a year.
Every gut instinct I have tells me that this will not work forever and its not something I should implement, however I'm interested to hear if anyone else is using this tactic, and how its working for them?
How can I compete with this "grey hat" tactic?
-
Hi Silkstream,
Yep - it's almost always a relief to know what you're experiencing is part of a mass bug rather than an individual problem. Google tends to respond to system-wide problems with more speed and care than they do to edge cases. So glad I was able to answer your question and give you some peace of mind!
-
Thank you so much Miriam. Its good to know that its something that's already been picked up in the US. I've added my comments to a webmaster forum thread that Linda Buquet started regarding this issue too, hopefully, Google will tweak this sooner rather than later. At least I dont feel so helpless now! Thanks again.
-
Hi SilkStream,
What you are experiencing is almost certainly the dread attack of the bad Google one boxes. This is a documented phenomenon going on right now, believed to be fallout from the Hummingbird Update. Instead of showing a complete pack of results for queries like this, Google is surfacing single spammy results with forbidden, spammed business titles. Some listings are for businesses that don't even exist anymore! It's an extremely poor user experience, obviously, and hopefully one Google will fix with another tweak of the dial.
I recommend you do some reading on this. Here are some great resources:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/09/28/hummingbird-local-knowledge-graph-shitty-search-results/
Hang in there. I really hope Google will fix this soon!
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
-
My big and famous website is ranking worse than unknown sites, what to do?
I have a major, popular and well-established website in my niche (lil peep merch) (lilpeepmerch.net) in my country, known as the largest, or one of the largest. But even with 12 years and loads of quality content, my website ranks WAAY worse than unknown ones, most of the time not even showing up on the searches at all, or ranking like page 7 in Google, while my rival, who does the same thing I do (and sometimes worse than what I do, like just publishing news when I publish news, and information, in-depth articles) ranks page 1 in Goo. I use Yoast SEO, try to do everything I can (but I'm no developer and have no access to my site codes), but my only good result is for one specific keyword.
Branding | | FitBoyAwesome0 -
Branded Search Results
I was searching Walgreen and I noticed a link next to business link in the results. You click on it and it's a breakdown of the business - business bio. How does that appear? Is there something that can be done to have it display? Image attached. 1pPgD
Branding | | Kdruckenbrod0 -
Branding Association for SEO, and Google's understanding of a "brand Name"
Hey guys. so I currently run my own business here in Queens NY, for Web Design and online marketing, specifically SEO, SMM, SEM, and some inbound marketing that ties to SMM and SEO. When starting I was in a different business, and had kept my old business name. I plan on re-branding myself January 1st with a brand new name, the name i'm seriously considering is "Media Marketing USA". I was able to purchase MediaMarketingUSA.com. I feel this name is good and bad at the same time, and here are some of the reasons. The pro: Easy to remember, sounds big, and describes my business well. The con: Sounds generic, and I worry it will be hard to brand. I used the mentioning tool provided by Moz and see that nearly everyday 500-1,000 people are naturally mentioning Media Marketing USA, one of my biggest questions is will this give me a competitive advantage in SEO, or will it hurt me in SEO as Google may not see this or understand its a brand name? Do you personally think this is a good name to re-brand myself and use as my main website? The Website itself will be used as a corporate website, a method of inbound and outbound marketing through content creation, Social Media, and of course SEO, targeting specific locations, and specialty services and industries in the NYC area. Please share your thoughts with me, THANKS!!!
Branding | | tonyr71 -
Which Domain Name to Choose
A non-profit I run owns two domains - ChristianSimplicity.com and SimpleLivingWithGod.com. I have just started producing content under ChristianSimplicity. These are long-term projects and we have resources to commit to them. They do not need an economic return and that is not going to be sought. Ultimately I want the sites to rank high on the key words like - Simple Living Living a Simple Life Living Well The Good Life Christian Lifestyle Christian Simple Living I have a two part question. . . I'll ask the first part now. The second may be irrelevant depending on the first answer. **Which domain name of the two is best to start out the site? ** We already have some content on the first site, but are early enough in the process that it isn't a big deal for us to switch and I don't think we will lose too much with respect to rankings. Will the second domain name partial match on key word phrase help significantly more in ranking for the harder term Simple Living? I already rank 14 for Christian Simple Living - and I'm willing for that to drop to have the longer term goal of ranking higher on Simple Living. Thanks.
Branding | | WithGodInc0 -
How much would or have you pay for a domain name?
I wasn't asking the question from a complete lack of experience but I put this question on the forum here last week…How much would you pay for a key rich domain name with the correct extension? I'm setting up a new website to sell Whitby Jet and one of the members of this forum suggested I should buy the domain name www.whitbyjet.com it was for sale for $300 or £200 in UK money and they thought it was a bargain. I thought it was worth the cost even though I've never paid anywhere near that amount for a domain name.
Branding | | whitbycottages
.
There is a company offering www.whitby-jet.co.uk or £1500 ?!!!! I have bought key rich domain names before, which were very descriptive also but only paid the registration fee with no additional costs
.
I just wondered how much members of this forum have paid for domain names. And why they thought it was worth the cost... SEO Branding etc.? By the way the company that was acting as the intermediate for my new doaminis is an absolute pain. They didn't perform the transfer process quickly until I bombarded them with emails My new domain is still not working one week down the line. In the past I bought a domain cheap and it has been working within 24 hours directly.0 -
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 -
Looking for examples of a B2B brand spinning off B2C products on to separate websites
Does anyone have any good examples or case studies? Right now I'm working on a site with both B2B and B2C products crowded onto one site. I'd love to find some examples of companies that have built their online B2B brand separately from their consumer products. I found the Constructive Playthings case study on Marketing Sherpa but nothing else.
Branding | | TexaSEO0 -
What are the best/ your favourite brand pages?
I've got a meeting today where we are looking to come up with some ideas to redesign our brand pages which are currently a bit rubbish www.schuh.co.uk/brands/converse Does anyone have some great pages that I could look to for inspiration? Idealy i'd like to get not only get SEO benefit, but also be able to use them for PPC landing pages as well as the page giving some good info on the brands we are selling. It would be great to get video on the page but this always serves to either push the product further down or get lost at the bottom. Any ideas or examples would be much appreciated!
Branding | | wp20130