Keywords in Google Local results

[SmartWebPros]

We have a client in the moving business and I'm absolutely flabbergasted by the "local" results and the number of them that are not following Google's guidelines for Google Local accounts. 3 of them are using exact match keyword strings as their company names. I've reported all 3, every week for the last 2 months and have not seen a single dip in the rankings. Meanwhile our client has a duplicate listing we've verified and "suspended" and it hasn't changed for 4 months!

Any tips? I've attached a photo of the listings as well.

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[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jeff,

While I can't produce the exact results you are seeing in Canada, I am seeing some of the same things you are. Interestingly, the title of the result that says 'Two Small Men' isn't stemming from the Google+ Local page if you click through, and it also isn't stemming from the title tag of the home page. Wonder if there is a duplicate listing? On the one with (Moving Company) in parentheses, yes, that's a pretty clear violation.  I understand how frustrating it is to have competitors getting away with violations. It's just like this in Local. Businesses can get away with intentional and accidental violations for months or years before Google takes notice and hammers down. You might consider reporting that your cities results are full of spam on the Google and Your Business Forum (http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business). It might help, but I wouldn't count on it, unfortunately.

Regarding your duplicate, did you first use the 'report a problem' link on the duplicate listings? If so your next step would be to use this troubleshooter, which is the best way to seek resolution:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs

If you've not tried this yet, give it a try.

[SmartWebPros]

Thank you Miriam!

We've tried reporting all the violating listings but haven't reported in the Google forum. I'll give that a try.

We did "report a problem" on the duplicate listing, but not on both. Just the listing that we want taken down with a redirecting website address. Maybe because the website address is different it will take longer, or is the proper protocol to report both and cross your fingers they take the right one down?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jeff,

So your client's profile's duplicate listing has a different website address than the authoritative listing? My advice is the same to follow the steps I've outlined and see what happens. Patience is a big virtue in Local. But, I will add to this...you are going to need to back this up with a citation cleanup campaign if there are other local business listings out there with your client's old website listed on them. You need to clean up the whole Internet record for the client in a case like this, or there is a chance that your Google+ Local listing will revert to old/bad data because of the way data feeds from one source to another. Thought I would mention.

[SmartWebPros]

Voila! Thank you!

I found the old website on the Better Business Bureau, which has a DA of 96! No wonder it keeps pulling it back up. Thanks again. I'll ask them to switch it and we'll hope for the best.

[MiriamEllis]

Sounds like an a-ha moment to me, Jeff! Good find, and keep digging. It's amazing how many times a piece of data can be duplicated on the web. Citation cleanup is not a favorite job of mine, but it is worth the effort.