Vender Hijacked our 7 Pack Listing
-
A dentist I work with contracted with a company called Z O C D O C (ZD). ZD ' S goal is to deliver patients to the dentist. To my surprise, ZD created a domain name called s t o n e b r i d g e d e n t a l t e x a s.com that forwards to the doctors ZD doctor page.
(You can see the Google results listing by Google search: dentist mckinney tx or click this link http://imgur.com/liq05at)
Apparently, ZD calls this their "kick start" program so basically ZD is redirecting traffic from what should have been the dentists 7 Pack listing (which would have gone to the dentist website) to the ZD's doctor page.
So now, the dentists 7 pack listing domain is owned by ZD but ZD has this hooked up to the doctors office address.Issues swimming inside my head:
1. Is there anything that can be done here? I can't really ask them to take their site down since they own it.
2. Even if ZD takes this site down, there is no guarantee the dentists website will replace the one that's in the 7 pack currently
3. I am pretty sure that the dentist site won't appear in the 7 pack because that would mean there would be two listings with the same address right?
4. As a side-issue, looks like Google removed the links to the Google-Plus pages? Not it only shows reviews.Any words of wisdome here? It would be nice that if when somebody clicked on the link to Stonebridge Dental that it would go to the dentist website, not ZD.. like it should be
-
The Stonebridge Dental Plus Page that ZD created is here:
https://plus.google.com/104280204877579676759/about?gl=US&hl=en-US- Notice that it is not a verified listing
The Plus Page I claimed on behalf of the client which is verified is here (which I can log in to):
https://plus.google.com/b/115007218006913673410/115007218006913673410/aboutLooks like ZD purchased a domain which then forwards to the ZD doctor page and then created a new Google Plus profile with my clients address and phone.
I might have to ask them for their contract with ZD and see if there is something in there I'm missing.
-
I did an individual claim. I always claim everything in the clients name. Also, our Google+ listing is verified. (I had the postcard go to client and I entered the code)
I claimed in Places for Business dashboard.
Here is our real Google+ page:
https://plus.google.com/b/115007218006913673410/115007218006913673410/aboutThe client knew about the ZD "Jump Start" program but had no Idea what that meant technically.
stonebridgedentaltexas.com domain is owned by ZD
-
Hi Bob,
When you claimed the client's Google Places listing on their behalf, did you
- bulk claim or individual claim
- claim in the new Google+ dashboard or the Places for Business dashboard
?
-
Bob, what a strange situation. Are you SURE that your client hasn't given permission to ZocDoc to create this page on their behalf? If not, sure seems pretty sleazy on their part.
As far as a tactical fix, I'd recommend that your client (and their friends, and you, and your friends) click the Report a Problem link on the lower righthand side of this page:
https://plus.google.com/104280204877579676759/about
and let Google know that the URL for this listing should be stonebridgedental.com. With enough of those reports, Google should make the edit, although that may or may not solve the problem of having duplicate listings in this instance
-
Hi Bob,
I'll start with the easiest part of this first: question #4. Yes, Google is not typically showing Google+ links in the SERPs anymore. This applies to all businesses, not just your client's, so that is not something to worry about.
Now on to the harder part.
To make sure I have the details right, this is your client:
http://www.stonebridgedental.com/
This is the domain ZD buit with their own branding on it:
http://stonebridgedentaltexas.com/
If I've got this right, the big question here is how your client's +Local listing got associated with the new URL. Is the client in control of their +Local dashboard? Which URL is there in the dash? Did ZD create a new listing? Typically, when one uses the word 'hijacking', it means that a third party has taken control of the listing. Has ZD actually done this or does your client still control their own dashboard?
On the one hand, because of the strategy of ZD, your client has earned both an organic and local listings on page 1 of the SERPs (hard to accomplish). On the other hand, if the client has no control over what ZD is doing, this may be a problematic situation. What happens if the client cancels their account with ZD? Does the client own the domain? If no, could be problematic. Same with any reviews earned. It sounds to me as if maybe neither you nor the client understood what would be involved when you signed up for this. Is that correct?
If the client is still in control of their dashboard and needs to point the URL back to their own website, they may still be able to maintain their local listing, but could possibly lose that second organic listing. It might be helpful if you could provide further details on this. This is the first time I've heard of ZD, so I'm looking at the situation without having encountered it before. If you can explain more about the situation, I'll be happy to read.
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
-
Google rejected my reconsideration request of unnatural link manual action, and list one blog article twice as example?
Hi Moz Community, On April 22 my site received a manual action in Google Webmaster telling me it's caused by unnatural links. After some a deep cleaning of all the sitewide links, which I think is the major problem of my external links, I requested a reconsideration request on May 4. And Google rejected my reconsideration request of unnatural link manual action on May 29, and list one blog article twice as example, which is quite weird to me. Is it normal for Google to list one URL twice as example in the feedback? I don't quite see the reason for that. Does anybody have any idea about that? This is really quite frustrating to me. And to be honest, I don't see much problems about the article Google listed as well. Yeah it's all about our product and it has 3 do-follow links to our site. But it contains no words such as sponsor, advertisement, or rewards... And the blog itself is quite healthy as well. The post also get rather high engagement, with organic comments and shares. How did Google flag that out? I don't think it's possible that Google will go into all our site links one by one... Hope you guys can help me with that. Thanks in advance! Ben
Technical SEO | | Ben_fotor0 -
Can google bots read my internal post links if they are all listed in a javascript accordian where I list my sources?
I post a JavaScript accordion drop down tab [ a collapsible content area ] at the end of all my posts. I labeled the accordion "Show Article Sources"., and when a user clicks it, then the accordion expands open and it shows all the sources I listed for my article. And this is where I post all of my articles links that I reference per each article. But I read somewhere that google crawlers can not read text in a drop down JavaScript tab. So I am wondering now if this is true because that would mean I have no internal linking SEO going on since it cant read the links? ..... if it is true, then I should remove the accordion from all my articles and some how include the links I reference in the actual body text so I can get SEO benefits from external linking similar content? If that's true, what is an aesthetic way to do this, any example links? Tips ? Thoughts ?
Technical SEO | | ianizaguirre0 -
Will this affect the local SEO listings in Google?
So, I'm trying to list the same exact address across all local listings for a client. How "exact" do they all need to match in order for them to be optimized for the 7-pack listings? Here is an example of what I'm dealing with... 999 Cherry Ln #1 Dallas, TX 75238 - Address on Google Plus page 999 Cherry Ln Ste 1, Dallas, TX 75238 - Address on every other business listing Is this close enough or is this inconsistency really hurting this client?
Technical SEO | | wiredseo0 -
Product listing adverts affect on organic
After reading there will be a drop down arrow on product listing adverts, which will push organic results down to display 16 products: http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-pla-expansion-to-show-16-product-listing-ads-166942?utm_source=twbutton&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=tweet I wondered how badly this is going to affect anyone in organic e-commerce? is this going to be rolled out for every term and have a drop down arrow for each one? Is organic going to die with e-commerce now? Thoughts much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Is there anywhere i can find a list of the best UK dedicated hosting companies
Hi, i am after finding a list of uk hosting companies that can offer dedicated hosting. I have been looking for months now for a UK hosting company. I need the following or something similar Intel Xeon E3-1220 4x3.1GHz TB 8MB Cache 500GBStorage8GBRAM10TBBandwidthif anyone can help with this then that would be great.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
How To Proceed When A Portion of Website has been hijacked.
Hi - I've recently learn that a site I manage: http://www.hhisland.com has somehow been hijacked by other sites (examples below): http://wlwhost.info/schering-07-nissan-altima-air-conditioner-drain-clogged/ (460 links)
Technical SEO | | hhdentist
http://abhinav.co.uk/Mary-motorcycles-for-sale-in-iasi/ (440 links)
http://www.turetzky.net/pmr/knifty-knitter-hobo-glove-pattern.html (374 links)
http://safeimail.com/banker-cold-cstrike-16/ (233 links) Just wanted to find out what my best course of action might be? Would changing hosts (or IP address) help in this situation? Thanks!0 -
Google indexing directory folder listing page
Google somehow managed to find several of our images index folders and decided to include them into their index. Example: websitesite.com/category/images/ is what you'll see when doing a site:website.com search. So, I have two-part question: 1) Does this hurt our site's ability to rank in any way?
Technical SEO | | invision
Because all Google sees is just a directory listing page with a bunch of links to images in the folder. 2) If there could be any negative effect, what is the best way to get these folders out of Google's index?
I could block via robots.txt, but I'm afraid it will also block all the images in that folder from being indexed in Google image search. I could also turn off directory listing in cpanel / htaccess, but then that gives is a 403 forbidden. Will this hurt the site in anyway and would it prevent Google from indexing the images in the directory? Thanks,
Tony0 -
Google places listing gone crazy
I have a google places listing that was doing great and was consantly on the top 3 for most of it's keywords. About 3 weeks ago google declined my listing (it was on the same account with other listings that violated google guidelines). The listing still showed up on google while it being reviewed (i assumed that it because this listing didn't violate an guideline.) About a week ago google started showing reviews from Insiderpages with my listing that belonged to a competitor. Today, they fixed that and added a link to my right insiderpages page but weird things started to happen.... My listing started to appear as a NON VERIFIED liting. My website is no longer on the listing. The phone number listed on the listing belong to a competitor!! All the citations are still mine including one from my site! Should i report it to google? i'm hesitating to do so, we are loosing a lot of business as it is with most of our listings down and i'm afraid this might be a small error that if i'll address will take longer to solve. My listing link: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=appliance+repair+nyc&fb=1&gl=us&hq=appliance+repair&hnear=0x89c24fa5d33f083b:0xc80b8f06e177fe62,New+York,+NY&cid=14321731230878083852&ei=01AXTum3J4mmsQKl_KxS&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=9&ved=0CJ0BEOIJMAg Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | atohad0