Totally stumped/flabbergasted about how these guys are dominating a competitive market.

[cssharkey]

Hey guys - I'm hoping you can help me solve this puzzle. A company called "Henderson Towing" totally dominates the SERP for keywords related to Detroit Towing. In fact, they usually have the two top spots in the organic listings.

They have one physical location (which, ironically, is just outside the city of Detroit), but three GMB Profiles (I've flagged them a few times over the last year or two). Two of their GMB profiles absolutely dominate the three pack and map results - I have to believe it's because they have a huge number of reviews, and they are unbelievably great reviews....(heavy emphasis on the "unbelievably").

I have a client that has about the biggest towing company in the state of Michigan - been around for years and knows everyone in the Detroit towing biz.
When I asked him about this Henderson Tow company that dominates the SERP, he didn't even look up - said: 'never heard of 'em'.

Website is nothing special. Backlink profile is pretty bad. So besides their awesome Google reviews, I'm stumped...anyone know what they're doing so well? If they were just consistently doing well in the SERP, that's one thing, but they consistently totally dominate it. They have the top two spots organically, and oftentimes are the top 2 on the map. Google Reviews are a huge local ranking factor - but it's just one. What are they doing that I'm missing?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Can you clarify what keyword you are searching and what the searcher location is?

 

[cssharkey]

"detroit towing service" - location is Detroit

"Tow Truck" - location is Detroit

 

[JoyHawkins]

I can't replicate that but I know Detroit is huge so what you're seeing will vary vastly depending on where you are located when you search. For example, I searched "tow truck" from 2 different zip codes inside Detroit and the 3-packs are completely different.

 

[cssharkey]

Thanks for the screenshots, Joy. Good to see that...(although, I'm still curious who was in the top couple slots organically...)

 

[JoyHawkins]

I got these using the GS Location Changer extension for Chrome.

 

[JoyHawkins]

The business you mentioned has the top organic spot but I'd say it's due to their backlink profile. It looks like a lot of the links they have were created 5+ years ago. They have links from 53 domains which is probably unusually high for a towing company.

 

[cssharkey]

Thanks, Joy....53 isn't a whole lot...so this is still a mystery. Thanks for your screengrabs.

 

[JoyHawkins]

The other things I'd check out are their photos and content. It looks like they have a bigger site than some of the competitors I saw ranking with them. It looks like some of those inner pages are also ranking so they'd be worth looking at.

 

[cssharkey]

I just did scan in RavenTools and a "Site:HendersonTow.com" scan on Google...and both show only 10 website pages for these guys. Not sure why there's such a discrepancy in pages...

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah, that number does seem pretty high. Google is only showing 14 indexed. Here are the ones that actually get volume according to Ahrefs:

 

[Susan]

"detroit towing service" - location is Detroit

"Tow Truck" - location is Detroit

I'm able to see Henderson towing has two listings in the local pack - one under the henderson name and one under the "detroit towing service" name with a diff phone number. I suggested an edit of the latter. Hope that helps. They also are spamming their content on the home page with a city + the word towing for every suburb. Sometimes that spam crap works. HELP JOY!

 

[JoyHawkins]

I suggested an edit of the latter.

I would strongly suggest reporting that type of stuff via the Redressal form, not by using "suggest an edit" > Business Redressal Complaint Form - Google My Business Help

 

[Susan]

Great idea, Joy. Thanks for you input.