GooglePlaces Slap?

[StevenP]

I'm a dentist in a town with little local competition.

For the last few years, the top 2 spots were taken by me and another practice, and we'd trade the #1 spot.

I figured I might one to solidify my position, and hired a company to get me more listings. They put in 50 listings over 1 week, and all of sudden, weird things are happening to my listing!

In this search (dentist harrison), my listing is #1, but the Google+ page is a dupe with a misspelled name (Gential Touch vs Gentle).

In this search (dentist harrison ny), my listing is #2, but with a weird title (Comments On) - and still wrong Google+ page.

If I click on more results for both searches, I have 2 listings - one at B, and my correct Google+ page at J.

So it seems that my correct Places page got slapped, and I'm only retaining the #1 and 2 spots for my dupe because they both link to a well SEOd website.

Any idea what could have happened?

 

[Linda Buquet]

I would not call it a slap. I'd call it sloppy SEO by that company, or possibly a mistake by your staff.

I see a variety of problems...

Someone did a LOT of listings on major authority sites like Yellowpages, Manta and City Search with that incorrect name.

"Gential Touch Dentistry" "(914) 630-2833" 283 listings.

When Google kept seeing that name all over it thought it must be another business and created a dupe. Dupes can kill your ranking.

Also here are both listings on a map search. (914) 630-2833 - Google Maps
Google is not trusting the location for some reason, hence the round map markers and the notice on the info bubble "Placement on map is approximate". So should do some checking to be sure marker is correct.

You said: "(dentist harrison), my listing is #1" Not for me. Here you don't show on page one at all except down in organic

"Comments On" in the search results is a problem I've seen before. Purely on the organic side. G is re-writing title tags and usually in local replaces them with the business name. BUT I've seen others complain about the same thing. And I checked and "Comments On" is not even on your home page anywhere. Not even in source code. Others that reported odd phrases like that said the same thing.

Likely if you get rid of the dupe though that will solve a lot of problems. Report it via the troubleshooter and have support deal with it.

BUT it will likely come back unless the bad data is cleaned up. If the SEO company did it, I would try to get them to clean it up.

 

[StevenP]

If it isn't a slap, why would the correct listing take a dive like that after being in top 2 for YEARS?

I've always known about the dupe, but never really cared as it was not affecting my listing. None of those citations were deliberate.

I noticed the new citations used a comma instead of the colon, as in GTD, Dr. SP, vs GTDr.SP...could that have something to do with it?

I attached the file of the new citations - curious to know your take on it.

I've noticed the geo marker problem and tried to correct it a little while ago, but it came back. Strange, as this is a big office building with tons of companies.

 

[StevenP]

I noticed the new citations used a comma instead of the colon, as in GTD, Dr. SP, vs GTDr.SP...could that have something to do with it?.

should be "GTD : Dr SP"... it turnd ": D" into

 

[Linda Buquet]

Steven,

Found the solution to part of your problem. The part where Google replaced your name and title tag with "Comments On" in the search results.

Others, see this search result to see Stevens problem. Comments On - the B listing

<a href='http://www.UploadScreenshot.com/image/1347269/1475659' target='_blank'><img src='http://img1.UploadScreenshot.com/images/main/8/23507191988.png' alt='Click here to view full size' /></a>​

Steve Peron played detective and solved the puzzle!

<a href="http://www.elevatedsearch.com/when-wordpress-googles-algorithm-go-wrong/">When WordPress & Google?s Algorithm Disagree</a>

I have a feeling that these updates sent Google ?Title Tag Modification? algorithm into overdrive. It was almost too good! However, in this case Google?s algorithm got it wrong by selecting ?Comments On? as the title tag.

So, the real question is why would Google select the phrase ?Comments On? as the title tag?

The simple answer is that the phrase ?Comments On? had to appear throughout the website code.

 

[StevenP]

I disabled the comments on this page as soon as I saw the tag, about 1 week ago.
Since then, there isn't even a word "comments" on in the site code.
I submitted the troubleshooter several days ago, so far no change.
Hopefully, there will be an update soon and it will get resolved.

Do you think the method of citations submission could have had something to do with the listing dropping down to J?

 

[Linda Buquet]

No I think you may need to read the post above more carefully.

It's not comments turned on, on the site, it's the wording in the WordPress code having to do with the RSS feed I believe. He shows you exactly where and what to change.

 

[StevenP]

Sorry, didn't realize I had to follow the link

Changed the code as directed. We'll see how long it takes for Google to change the title.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Oh good glad reading it proved helpful.

Keep us posted!