How The HELL Is This Site Ranking So Well In Google Places?
-
When I do a search for this site it ranks number 2 on Google just below the official federation of master builders website for the keyword phase "builders in london"
this is the site http://bit.ly/Lypo8E which is a nasty looking blog which has nothing to do with builders and they don't even have an address anywhere on the site.
The only thing I can see is that they are sharing there address with a lot of other businesses and all of the citations from those other businesses are causing them to rank higher on Google places, but surely Google can't be that stupid right?
-
Hi Umit
I took a look at that listing, and it is definitely shady, I can see why you want to know why they rank. To me it looks like they are gaming the places ago fairly hard. There are numerous things that the listing is doing that are possibly against guidelines.
The first is the name, "London Builders" it doesn't just have the location, but it is also a strong keyword variation. this keyword is then repeated in the description, and the url. Using the location in your name and description is against best practices, and can get you in trouble. However it is also extremely effective. While any one of these things wouldn't be enough to rank this high, all three could have that effect. Also, the onpage signals from the site are also reinforcing the ranking.
Frankly, the site looks incredibly spammy. Its a default wordpress template with a couple of posts over the last couple of years that use the keywords. Unfortunately its a example of some of the big weaknesses that the Google Places has right now. This looks like a case of a black or grey hat seo trying to rank a company in Google Places without the company having a actual website.
-
Something else that can affect Google Places positioning is proximity to the centre of the geographical area being searched. So for London, unfortunately, that's the City of London, right where this guy has a virtual office.
The near match keyphrase for the actual business name on Google Places must be helping them out hugely. There may be something in your theory about implied credibility, too, if other highly rated businesses share that address - though my money is on the business name/keyphrase being the main culprit here.
-
LOL, So I just have to buy a keyword domain and add it to Google places then I'll be ranking over 2000 competing companies in Google places? Wow
-
The have their keyword in the domain and have added an address in Google places/maps.
-
While I'm sure those are all factors I do not believe for 1 second that it's as simple as that, but thank you for your reply.
I would test your theory but I'm pretty certain what you've said is not going to rank me number 2.
-
They have included two of the three words in your 'key phrase' in the following:
- URL
- H1 Heading
- Body
- Link
- Image
Those are all things that Google looks at when considering relevance.
Because they have a relatively small amount of text, keyword density will rank the key phrase fairly high.
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
-
Does google sandbox aged domains too?
Hello, i have a question. Recently i bought a domain from godaddy auction which is 23 years old and have DA 37 PA 34 Before bidding i check out the domain on google using this query to make sure if pages of this website are showing or not (site:mydomain.com) only home page was indexed on google. Further i check the domain on archive web the domain was last active in 2015. And then it parked for long about 4 years. So now my question does google consider these type of domain as new or will sandboxed them if i try to rebuild them and rank for other niche keywords ? Because its been 4 weeks i have been building links to my domain send several profile and social signals to my domain. My post is indexed on google but not showing in any google serp result.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Steven231 -
Should I delete older posts on my site that are lower quality?
Hey guys! Thanks in advance for thinking through this with me. You're appreciated! I have 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content that has been a large focus of mine over the last couple years. They're incredibly important to my business. That said, less experienced me did what I thought was best by hiring a freelance writer to create extra content to interlink them and add relevancy to the overall site. Looking back through everything, I am starting to realize that this extra content, which now makes up 1/3 my site, is at about 65%-70% quality AND only gets a total of about 250 visitors per month combined -- for all 384 articles. Rather than spending the next 9 months and investing in a higher quality content creator to revamp them, I am seeing the next best option to remove them. From a pros perspective, do you guys think removing these 384 lower quality articles is my best option and focusing my efforts on a better UX, faster site, and continual upgrading of the 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content? I'm honestly at a point where I am ready to cut my losses, admit my mistakes, and swear to publish nothing but gold moving forward. I'd love to hear how you would approach this situation! Thanks 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ryj0 -
Google URL Shortener- Should I use one or multiple???
I have a client with a number of YouTube videos. I'm using Google URL Shortner to allow the link to show in the YouTube text (as its a long URL). Many of these links go to the same page ex .com/services-page Should I use a single short URL for each video linking to the .com/services-page or should they be unique each time? If unique, would Google possibly think I'm trying to manipulate results? Thanks in advance. I'm just not sure on this one and hope someone knows best practice on this. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mgordon1 -
Does google give any advantage to Webmaster tools verified sites?
Hello friends, I am seeing a strange pattern. i register 2 new domain and make sites on them and add no backlinks nothing only put content and did on page seo right. After 1month of google indexing. both sites are not showing in search for the targeted keywords, but as soon as i add them to Google Webmaster tools they both automatically comes to the 16th and 24th number for their specific keywords. So my question is does Google give any advantage to sites which are verified and added into its webmaster tools in terms of seo or authority?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RizwanAkbar0 -
More than one site in same industry
A client wants to have 3 sites in the same industry with a lot of overlapping keywords. Is that white hat? Will Google mind?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Google messages & penalties
I just read the following comment in a response to someone else's question. The Responer is an SEOMoz Authority whose opinion I respect and have learned from (not sure if it's cool to mention names in a question) and it spurred my curiosity: "...Generally you will receive a warning from Google before your site is penalized, unless you are talking about just specific keywords." This is something I have been wondering about in relation to my own sudden ranking drop for 2 specific keywords as I did not receive any warnings or notices. I have been proceeding as if I had over used these keywords on my Home page due to an initial lesser drop, but identifying the cause for the huge drop still seems useful for a number of reasons. Can anyone explain this further?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gfiedel0 -
Local Listing Spam - Why is Google Missing this?
I have a competitor that ranks in Google Search for a Top Dollar Keyword in the organic rankings with the normal result, however just below that it shows another result that contains the Local City Name followed by their business name. In the URL they have domain.com > Local and below the description data it shows a map for a totally different location as this competitor only has one location... Once clicking on the link I found that it has everything in the title, description and h1 and body content in footer that talks about the local area but not their product. and when you click the breadcrumbs you can go back to a directory of all the other cities and states they are targeting with doorway pages with the same layout however the anchor text is cityname+keyword How are they getting away with this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ben-HPB0 -
Penalized In Google ?
Hello Guy´s. Im terrible sad because we make an amazing SEO job for this client: www.medabcn.com And the website was hacked.. Message from the hosting platform: "It would appear that malicious individuals have found a way to upload spam
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maty
pages as well as backdoors to your site(s). We
have disabled the page(s) in question (via removing their permissions, e.g..
chmod) until you are able to address this matter." Result: we loose all our SERP Somebody of yours was in a similar situation ? Notes: I was on Google Webmaster an anything seem to be normal. The domain was relative new, maybe a late sandbox efect ? Thanks a lot for your help. Matias0