Another Business is Using My Client's Address
-
This morning my client contacted me that another business is using their address as their own! They received a Google verification postcard with pin number on it, but luckily had the foresight to not give it to the person when they called. After some research, we also found out that they are using our address on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. The kicker is: this business is another SEO firm! You would think they would know that using our address would cause NAP issues for their own business.
Has anyone dealt with another business trying to hijack their address for local rankings? Any advice on steps to take to report this abuse would be appreciated. Since this person is obviously unscrupulous, we don't want to provoke them into taking any other negative action online that could affect our business.
-
Wishing you good luck! Spammers really give me the blues.
-
Thank you for the resources Miriam. We are currently in process of creating a cease and desist letter as you suggested and will be taking other necessary steps as well.
-
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.
-
Yes, my client is the only business located in this suite and this other business does not even have a brick-and-mortar location. My client is in court reporting and this other company is in SEO, so not in the same category, no.
-
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?
-
Thanks for the response, Linda.
Yes, we have had their own business verified for years. I've double checked that everything is alright with our page verification and for now, it appears to be fine. I did use the steps to report an error on the map, but it looks like this person could just as easily change it back.
The bigger concern that I have is this other business reaping havoc in our own local rankings by creating conflicting NAP issues since he is using our address on ALL of his profiles. Any other tips that anyone has would be much appreciated.
-
How awful! Has your client gone in and claimed their own listing? Even if they did before, they should probably do it again in light of this situation.
This Google support page might be helpful--there is a "report a problem" link.
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
-
I want to remove my business from Google Local Listing Completely
I deleted my business from Google my business (GMB) but it's still showing on Google Local Listing. Kindly, tell me how can I removed completely. I need help?
Local Listings | | Sabar-din1 -
Physical Address issue
Hi there, I have one domain, I am operating My website From USA, Physical address is also of USA, But I want to Target All Users to Thailand, As its Online casino Site, So My Question is, : Is there any way to promote My website With USA address in Thailand ?? Do i Will get Proper Search Ranking For That ?? Please Help me Out For this.. Thank you in advacne
Local Listings | | poojaverify050 -
"Duplicate" on Google Local - Attorney and Business Listing
For our law firm, we have a Google Local listing for the firm (Riddell Law LLC). Google also created a local listing for one of the attorneys (Riddell) (we didn't create it, but are in the process of verifying it). Both listings are at the same address. Moz Local says these are "duplicates" - is that true? Would Google penalize us for this? I am not sure how to fix it - both the individual attorney and the business are in fact at the same address. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!!
Local Listings | | bpurdue0 -
LOCAL CITATIONS - SHARED ADDRESS, DIFFERENT BUSINESS ENTITIES, DIFFERENT PRACTICTIONERS
I am trying to to boost my clients online presence through Local Business Listings but am running into a few issues that I would like to get some feedback on. First, I will provide some background information and then provide my questions that I am seeking feedback on! Your help is greatly appreciated. **BACKGROUND INFO: ** Client has little online visibility and is looking to optimize his Local Business Listings to boost his online presence. Client is a Chiropractor that just registered his own business, has a unique local phone number, his own website. The facility that the Chiropractor works out of is a shared office space, known as a "Wellness Center" This facility has other chiropractors, doctors, & massage therapists who fit the same criteria as my client. I understand that in order to qualify for a local business listings your business must meet **CRITERIA. **This is the only one he does not meet, but the way the businesses are ran, it seems like to me that he should be eligible for local business listings. Have a dedicated physical street address (not a shared address, PO box, or virtual office) I don't understand why a shared address isn't allowed. This seems pretty legit to me. And is similar to a Doctors Office with multi-practitioners but slightly different because they each have their own business not all working for one business owner. All working for themselves. Everyone recently moved and joined this wellness center. Everyone generates their own leads and clientele. One thing to note is that no other business in the wellness center currently has optimized their online presence using this address. But address is present on other business owners websites. If my client uses this address and builds his local listings, is there a chance he can get penalized if the other business owners build their business listings on sites like, yelp, yellowpages, google maps, citysearch, etc. What are the chances of him getting penalized/the entire shared office being penalized due to this shared office space. Your feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank You
Local Listings | | InternetRep0 -
Location in business name for listings
A while back, I changed 26 of our business listings on Google so that the business name included the city, for example: "Business Name Sheffield", "Business Name York", "Business Name Doncaster". It looked consistent, it was easier to read in Google Maps when searching for Eden Mobility and even better - it may have been the cause of positive impacts in our local rankings. Using the Moz Local tool, I'm now looking at rolling out this change out throughout ALL of our business listings on the web, including Factual, Yelp etc etc... Does anybody have thoughts on this? At the back of my mind I can't help but think that I should be consistently using ONLY the business name throughout all of my online business listings. Will Google consider each of these locations as separate business entities? Here's something I found in Google's guidelines: Adding unnecessary information to your name (e.g. "Google Inc. – Mountain View Corporate Headquarters" instead of "Google") by including marketing taglines, shop codes, special characters, hours or closed/open status, phone numbers, website URLs, service/product information, location/address or directions or containment information (e.g. "Chase ATM in Duane Reade") is not permitted. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I've seen some big businesses such as ASDA doing the same thing I'm doing - but I'm undecided!
Local Listings | | LiamMcArthur0 -
Local citations from business directories in other countries
Hi all, I normally work for clients in my home county (The Netherlands) and with local citation building I focus on Dutch websites or well know .com websites in the Netherlands. My rule of thumb kinda was, if it’s not known in the Netherlands it isn’t worth getting mentioned there. Since The Netherlands are pretty small and I think Google ain’t perfect I was wondering if it makes sense to list a Dutch business on any .com business listings that are internationally big, but aren’t well known in the Netherlands. Two reasons that got me thinking this direction: A big well known Dutch company offers a service such as Moz local and did integrate their service with several international business listing websites that I never heard off, since these business directories focus themselves on other parts of the world. Google ain’t perfect and I think they got more budget to identify trustworthy business directories with an international focus or a focus on America then with a focus on The Netherlands. So I’m wondering if it makes any sense to list a Dutch business on let’s say the top 20 international business directories (although these directories don’t have any brand recognition in The Netherlands).
Local Listings | | Bob_van_Biezen0 -
Is it better to stick with a generic LocalBusiness Schema Itemtype for a particular type of business or should you get more specific?
Full disclosure... I don't know much about proper Schema Markup. I'm curious about how specific everyone gets when generating the markup for different types of businesses that service a local area and rely heavily on Local Maps listings. For instance, I have a bunch of self-storage facility clients. Is it better to just keep it generic like any other Local Business? Here's 2 examples... which one is better: <div id="search-area" itemid="facility" itemtype="http://schema.org/SelfStorage" itemscope=""> <a style="color: #ffffff" href="http://goo.gl/maps/SjmZ"> <span itemid="facility" itemtype="http://schema.org/SelfStorage" itemscope=""> <span itemprop="name">Elliot Kyrene Storage Solutionsspan>span><br>a>
Local Listings | | barkingtuna
<div itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress" itemscope="" itemprop="address"> <a style="color: #ffffff" href="http://goo.gl/maps/SjmZ"> <span class="street-address" itemprop="streetAddress">543 W. Elliot Rdspan>
<br><span class="locality" itemprop="addressLocality">Tempespan>, <span class="region" title="Arizona" itemprop="addressRegion">AZspan>
<span class="postal-code" itemprop="postalCode">85284span><br> <span itemprop="telephone">480.940.0111span>
a>div>h3>div> Or is this better: <div itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress" itemscope="" itemprop="address"><h2><span itemprop="streetAddress">2636 W. Thunderbird Roadspan><span itemprop="addressLocality">Phoenixspan>, <span title="Arizona" itemprop="addressRegion">AZspan>
<span class="postalCode">85023span>|<span itemprop="telephone">602-863-0111span>
h2>
<span itemtype="http://schema.org/GeoCoordinates" itemscope="" itemprop="geo"> <meta content="33.611544" itemprop="latitude">
<meta content="-112.114374" itemprop="longitude">span>
div>0 -
Do Citations help will all local rankings/Pages on my website or just the page it's linked to
Hi All, My ecommerce site has different category/landing pages for each of my branches . I'm currently getting some more citations done as wondered the following Is it a general rule to say, that the more citations you have the better as long as they are consistent and free? Given that I have different categories /landing pages showing the NAP of my individual branches along with unique content, should all these extra citations help with local rankings across my whole site or is it usually just helping the specific localized webpage it's pointing to ? I can get a company to help me do my citations but to do all the branches, it is going to be quite expensive. Is citations quite a big individual SEO factor in local search as opposed to on page seo factors etc etc. Any advice greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Local Listings | | PeteC120