Ranking 3 times in SERP for non Branded Keyword

[BenGMKT]

Anyone else seeing this?

It just changed as of a few hours ago because it wasn't showing up this morning.

One of our competitors is now ranking 2 times in the 3 pack and once in the regular SERP for a non branded keyword. "service/product + city."

They have different:

• Names
• phone numbers - 1 local, 1 -888
• addresses

it looks like they don't have a rel/301 set up on the home page and they have a www site and non www site set up as 2 different accounts.

One of the results is a Google Plus page and one is a Google Places/local page.

[OrionGroup]

This is an interesting scenario. Do you think they are doing this on purpose to get more exposure in the SERPs, or is it a matter of IYP (Internet Yellow Page) listing overload? Perhaps they don't know how cannibalized their NAP (Name/Address/Phone) listings are, or perhaps they are doing it on purpose to gain visibility.

In the long run, this will hurt them, because the search engines are always going through and confirming listings. If you think it is a real issue, you could try to report a listing as duplicate or "closed".

Let me know if that helps address any of your concerns.

Scott O.

[BenGMKT]

Yes they are without a doubt doing this to dominate the serp. In the time that i wrote this I actually dug deeper and found that they have a 4th website that forwards to their inventory as well.

It crazy because this is a good size city with a keyword that get 3200+ monthly searches. And they are managing to pull this off.

[OrionGroup]

I would recommend reporting this as you can.

Otherwise, there are other ways to get Google's attention (and the Map reviewing community) by using http://www.google.com/mapmaker

PM me if you need more info on that.

Scott O.

[OrionGroup]

As per the info you sent via PM... this has managed to be taken care of via GMM (google map maker) at least for now.

Some GMM pros marked the 'other' 2 listings as duplicate of the first, official listing.

I see that the editors/reviewers first changed the addresses of the offending POIs (point of interest) to match the original listing... and also added extra phone numbers into the original listing (to help show Google that it is all the same business.)

Search again... and you'll most likely find that the dealership only has one G+ Local Page appearing.

More info: https://plus.google.com/113059806113646417939/posts/eHbxfnMwWbL

If you like my answer... please mark this accordingly.