Category: Google Plus

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Google Cracks Down on Fictitious Google+ Local Reviews

I knew that eventually Google would address the growing problem of SEO firms selling services to create fictitious Google+ Local reviews, and finally they have. Here is a quote from Google:

“For business owners:

  • Be wary of an SEO or reputation management service that promises to generate reviews for your business. We’ve seen companies make up fake glowing testimonies — and we’ll take them down.
  • We don’t take down negative reviews for simply being negative for anyone, regardless of any other relationships with Google. Instead, we encourage you to utilize the owner response functionality to respond to the review and address the user’s concerns.
  • If a third party claims that they know how to remove reviews from Google, don’t believe them. Google does not work with any third party reputation management companies and we certainly don’t remove reviews unless they violate our guidelines.
  • Don’t set up a computer or tablet device in your place of business for customers to leave reviews on site. Consider sending a reminder e-mail so customers can review on their own time.
  • Remember, we don’t allow you to give customers free gifts or discounts for leaving reviews.” Read the full disclosure for business owners and SEO on this Google page.

Based on what I see, it appears that Google is not only scanning for fake reviews, but actively and aggressively targeting Local Pages that use them, but interesting enough appears to be tracking the IP address. Take a careful look at the section that says don’t put a tablet or computer in your place of business – that means IP tracking.

Additionally Google has turned to crowd sourcing to catch the offenders. If you know a competitor is doing this or suddenly has tons of reviews magically you can report them to Google for review.

“If you see a review that violates our policy guidelines, you can report the review to us by clicking on the gray flag icon next to the review in question. You’ll be taken to a form where you can tell us why you’re flagging that review. Please note that we won’t follow up with you individually, but we do review every piece of content that is flagged.”

This information is very important for website owners. I know of several who have been approached by firms selling these exact review services. They are stating that they set up individual Google email and Yahoo accounts just for your review creation, work to mask the IP address and then create a glowing supposedly untraceable review. Be wary of these types of services, is it worth being banned from Google+ Local pages to try to scam Google?

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More on Google+ Communities and Why I Like Them

I have been doing some testing on running and participating in Google+ Communities. Many SEO’s including myself feel that Google+ Communities may be the next “big” thing for getting SEO placement on Google.com.

Here’s what I’ve found out while using Google+ Communities.

1. I like them! They are interesting fast paced and fun to use. I am involved in several in my industry and the quality of information exchange is excellent. It’s like Quora but focused only in your industry.

2. What a great way to get Google+ followers. With some interaction in your own and other communities you can really build your circle numbers fast. I am now in 400 circles and not only is this great for getting your message out, but this number now appears under your AuthorRank tag in Google.com on anything you write. This really gives your content credibility and may push your content up in the SERPs.

3. By setting up your own communities you widen your circles and add to the ability so share your message plus your message when shared and +1’nd may receive more authority in the SERPs as others in your own industry are talking about you. Additionally, your Community posts may actually appear in the Google index. If you have verified your Author status, you get even more juice and exposure.

Here’s what Google just sent to me this last week about my own authorship status. You can click the image and read the full information.

Google Authorship Status
Google Authorship Status

I like Google+ Communities and see only positives at this point for their use. Although they do take time because there is nothing you can automate for business owners the time investment appears to have really big benefits when it comes to web visibility and web authority.

Join our own Google+ Communities we have two: AdWords Strategies and Bing Ad Strategies.

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Google+ Local Allows Multiple Locations

Finally Google+ Local has listened to businesses that have multiple people in an office building or location and is now allowing more than one Google+ Local page per address.

Previously if you were a real estate agent located in an office the first person who grabbed that location in Google+ Local owned it and you could not set up an account to show your business. What was worse was if someone other than the legal business owner grabbed the location, you were stuck!

Now Google has allowed multiple businesses who may be in different suites, cubicles or floors to now verify an address. That’s great news for many small businesses and consultants.

Here’s what Google says specifically that is a nice new change:

“Individual practitioners may be listed individually as long as those practitioners are public-facing within their parent organization. Common examples of such practitioners are doctors, dentists, lawyers, and real estate agents. The practitioner should be directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours. A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations.”
“Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may be listed separately. These departments must be publicly distinct as entities or groups within their parent organization, and ideally will have separate phone numbers and/or customer entrances.”

To find out more about the Google+ Local guidelines, please visit this Google information page.

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Introducing Rel=Publisher for Brands

Introducing rel=publisher.
Introducing rel=publisher.

Rel=Publisher is a new tag that can tie your website brand to a Google+ page and it is a hot new tactic that allows brands to expand beyond the rel=author tag.This is actually great news that Google now has expanded Google+ verification and authority beyond just a person. In fact, this was a problematic issue for large businesses on Google+ – who did you tie your business website too when you are really a brand more so than an individual.For a business like mine, using the rel=author tag makes perfect sense. I write for my own business exposure and I am my brand as the owner and founder of McCord Web Services, but how about a large company where the CEO really does not want to tie his or her name to a Google+ page which may be ghost written. In this case the new rel=publisher is a much better fit.

With rel=publisher a brand or large company can now tie their website and verify their brand tying  to a Google+ Business page and not a Google+ personal page. This allows for the Google verification process to work, to build trust and web authority but without being tied to an individual who may or may not stay with the company in years to come.

With changes that Google is making on Google+ Business Pages by allowing Business Pages to now follow people this new tag is welcome news to help with the long term implementation and use of Google+ by large businesses.