Hey, this is Joe Burnich with bigwestmarketing.com. In this short video, what I want to do is show you a new NBC News report that just came out. And it’s an expose on service-based businesses and how people are taking advantage of Google’s listings, and how this can hurt your business, and what you can do about it. So let’s get started right now.
Okay, so what I’m going to do is I pulled up a recording of this new NBC News report. Okay? And I’m going to play little clips of it, and then I’m going to pause it, and I’m going to talk about what this means to you and your service business. Okay? So here we go.
This past summer, Lucy Wright was looking for a locksmith to replace the locks on her home near Seattle.
On the Google Maps, it was showing as a local business.
But she says the business she found was nothing more than a call center that dispatched someone who badly damaged her doors. He didn’t-
Okay, so this is talking about a locksmith. Now, if you don’t know, locksmiths have … They’re at the top of Google’s black list as far as what kind of businesses try to scam Google the most. So they’re starting out with the locksmith. Later, they’re going to get into a carpet cleaner, and then a water damage company. But basically they’re talking about these fake listings on Google. These are people that just create fake profiles, and they try to put themselves in cities that they’re not actually located in. And then they go out and they do subpar work, and there’s no recourse. There’s nothing anybody can do about it, because they’ll just start up another fake listing. So what they’re calling these fake businesses in this report are “ghost businesses.” So watch this little clip right here.
… known as a ghost business. Here’s how it works. Say you’re a florist and you want to boost your online presence. You create additional fake listings all over town, maybe even all over the country. That increases the chances you’ll show up in a search by potential customers. And that way, your business looks like it’s nearby.
So I talk to service-based businesses every day. We work with … We’ve had several hundred clients that have have run into this problem where they want their Google location to be in several areas across a metro area. They want to rank in several cities using SEO. Okay? And obviously, there are ways to do that, but what’s going to happen is you’re going to get put on Google’s black list. And it’s getting harder and harder to do this.
And you may see these ghost businesses in your city, so people that have made fake listings. Okay? And after we get through this, I’m going to show you what we do to inform Google about these fake listings and get them taken down. But the main thing I want to show here is, if you’re going to play the SEO game, okay, if you’re going to rank on Google, you really need to do it right. Okay? You don’t want to be bunched in with these ghost businesses.
Now, the fact that NBC is doing a report on this, and we just saw an article a couple months ago from The New York Times, they’re putting a lot of pressure on Google to really start cracking down on businesses that are playing games and doing fake stuff. Okay? So this is really important for you to not fall into this camp. Don’t play those games. I know it’s tempting because you want to rank in multiple areas. And there are other alternatives to getting into multiple cities, okay? But making fake listings and using PO boxes, virtual addresses, or addresses where your business is definitely not even located, then you could actually get in big trouble. And it’s really hard to recover from them.
Now, in this next section, we’re going to see Jason Brown, who is the guy that really is heading the whole business spam, or ghost business, fight. And it’s funny because Jason Brown is, here’s a picture of Wendy Moon in our office, our SEO specialist, took a picture with Jason Brown at the last big SEO conference. So I thought it was kind of funny when all of a sudden he pops up on an NBC News report. But let’s jump in and finish this little section here.
In the car with me is Jason Brown. He is an expert on consumer fraud. Jason, were you able to find some of these bogus listings nearby?
Yes, I was actually able to find a whole bunch in just a few minutes by doing a quick Google search.
Okay, let’s go check them out. So how big of a problem-
So you see that Jason Brown has done a bunch of searches, I think they’re in Orange County, California, and they have found a bunch of fake businesses. So what we want to do is make sure that we pay attention to this. And I’ll put a link so you can watch the whole report after this. I’ll put a link down below the video. But right now, I want you to see this carpet cleaning company and this water damage company, they get busted and eventually taken down by Google because of this report.
Actually, it’s a pretty big, rampant issue, with a whole industry that’s actually out there selling fake listings as a way to make money for unscrupulous businesses.
Here in Los Angeles, we followed Google Maps to this carpet cleaner called Stanley Steam.
So a fake business, they’re calling themselves Stanley Steam instead of Stanley Steemer, like come on.
… is it about this listing that makes it suspicious to you?
Well, one, Stanley Steemer is just called Stanley Steemer, it’s not called Stanley Steam. So it does appear that somebody is trying to use their name to get legitimate business.
Let’s go check it out. We pull up to the location.
And it looks like this yellow house right here is the address we are looking for.
So a lot of service-based businesses that we work with, they work from their home. Okay? But when you watch this video, you’re actually going to see they used somebody else’s address, and they got busted.
Nice house. And it’s not a carpet cleaning business. How do I know? I spoke with the homeowner, who was shocked at the listing we showed him.
Is this a carpet cleaning business?
No, it isn’t.
You’re not Stanley Steam Carpet Cleaners?
No, I’m not.
Have you ever run a carpet cleaning business-
Okay, so that’s the carpet cleaning example. Next I want to show you the water damage example.
… our destination, the Google map listing for Water Damage Restoration, Los Angeles. Water Damage Restoration gives me this address, but this looks like a computer sales and repair store. So let me see what’s going on. I spoke with the manager of that store.
Now, some of our clients will want to do this. They’ll say, “Well, I have a friend that owns this business, this commercial location, and we want to use this location to tell Google this is where we are.” Okay? Well, obviously, this water damage company is using a computer repair shop and saying, “This is where our location is,” and it’s actually hurting this guy’s business.
This is your address?
Yeah. It looks like that’s our address. So they’re advertising our address for their business.
Did you know this was happening?
No. So somebody is taking another address and using it for their own business.
How does that make you feel?
Pretty bad. Because we do advertise quite a bit.
So you see, there is this game being played. Service-based businesses, or these shady SEO companies are creating these fake listings for people. It’s hurting other businesses out there. It may be hurting your business. You may know of a fake listing in your town. And I’m going to show, you after we finish this next little clip, I’m going to show you exactly what we do to take down these fake business listings, or these ghost businesses.
… [inaudible 00:07:50] on Apple or other competitors, but Google told us they took down the listings after we contacted them, and that they have a team dedicated to addressing these fake ghost businesses.
It has to be a huge team.
Yeah, they have to get on it, and clearly [crosstalk 00:08:00]-
It’s like Whac-A-Mole for … I mean, all of these new scams, right?
So there you go. NBC came out and said, “Google has a dedicated team that is going out and taking down these fake businesses.” So if you’re playing the games with Google, with PO boxes, virtual addresses, using somebody else’s address, doing fake stuff with Google, you’re eventually going to get caught. Like I said, Wall Street Journal, and now NBC are coming out with these reports. There’s pressure on Google to really start cracking down on people. So the best thing to do is to either have a legitimate residential address. If you’re in a bigger city, you’re really going to need a legitimate commercial address with signage out front. And you’ll probably need to submit, in the future, you’re going to probably have to submit a city business license with your business name and your address that matches the address you registered with Google.
I know a lot of you don’t want to hear about this. And I know Google has been making a lot of changes when it comes to service areas and how you list service areas. If you saw my video, the last video I made, Google is allowing you, or requiring you now to put in all your different service areas and zip codes. And they’re showing that to clients. It doesn’t mean you’re actually ranking in all these different areas, but it’s a step in the right direction. And I’m telling you right now, the people that are playing games with Google, it’s going to get harder and harder. The people that are doing it legitimately, and taking the time, spending the extra money on commercial addresses, it’s going to get easier and easier. Okay?
So if you’re thinking, “Well, I’m not going to spend the money, I’m not going to incur that expense to go get a commercial address for my business. It’s just not worth it for me,” well, if you really want to play the Google game, in a big city especially, then you need to stop thinking about a commercial address as an expense. You need to start thinking of it as an investment. Okay? So if I was going to move into a new city, into a big city, and start a commercial or start a service-based business, then the first thing I would do is I would establish myself in a commercial address location, with signage, okay, in a central part of the big city that I’m trying to rank in. You’ll have a huge advantage over your competitors if you do that. All right?
And so, I told you I was going to tell you what to do about the spam businesses, or the ghost businesses, out there. If you know somebody in your town, one of your competitors that’s outranking you that shouldn’t be there, or is ranking at all, that exists in the Google Maps at all, and you know that they’re fake and they shouldn’t be there, here’s what you can do. You can fill out this Business Redressal Complaint Form. Okay? You can just do a Google search for that, and there’s a form that you can fill out. Okay?
Now, word of caution, do not start putting your legitimate competitors in here hoping that they’re going to be taken down. You’re going to have to do a lot of work on this form. You’re going to have to make a case, with screenshots and reasons. And there’s a lot of questions they’re going to ask you. The more legitimate information you can give them proving that this business is fake, the better chance you’ll have at being taken down. We’ve had many businesses taken down by filling out this form.
Now, we, as a marketing agency, have done this many times. And we actually have a reputation with Google. So when they see our stuff come in, they’re going to pay more attention to us. We’re going to carry a lot more weight than a business owner that’s just trying to do it to their competitors. But that being said, anybody can go and fill this out, as long as you have information and proof that there is a fake business out there that is causing problems in the ranking system. But like I said, guys, it’s time to be real. It’s time to do it right. The people that do it right and be real, it’s going to get easier and easier as we move forward with this SEO game.
Like I said, I’m Joe Burnich. If you have any questions, give our office a call. We have a free consultation for 30 minutes, the first 30 minutes are free at least, (406) 493-8881, or go to bigwestmarketing.com. And subscribe to my YouTube channel if you like this information, because I got a lot more videos like this coming out in the future. Talk soon.
