Yelp is manipulating Google Local Pack?

[Gsmithmike]

I have recently noticed that yelp is actually manipulating Google Local Pack. you can not recognize but as soon as you type in plumber los angeles, and then check the first listing actual google + page you see Los Angeles ? Home Services ? Plumbing - Yelp What is this? Am i wrong or right? Are they allowed to do so?

 

[CCarter]

Are you sure that's not just Google editing the Title according to you result. They edit something like over 60% of all SERP Results according to the user's keyword input.

Google Changing Title Tags

Based on the above charts, we can assume that Google is making changes to titles when they display the SERPs. I wanted to find out just how many have been changed and how different they are from the on page title. 36% of titles were partially changed where the title displayed in Google was extracted from the on page title or they were the on page title with something minor appended to it such as the site name. 25.4% of the titles were completely changed where there were different words or a different word order in the SERPs than in the on page titles.

Title Tag Differences
Partial Change - 36%
Complete Change - 25.4%
Unchanged - 38.6%

For those titles that were left unchanged, their lengths match up pretty well with the overall combined lengths noted above. The largest range is still between 50 and 59 characters.

Source: Google Doesn't Think Your Title Tags are Good Enough

 

[Linda Buquet]

No Yelp is not manipulating anything - it's the plumber.

The Plumber put his Yelp page URL on his G+ Local listing:
https://plus.google.com/114695026156023225378/about?hl=en

Here is an attorney that did the same thing with 2 other high authority directories:
<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local/25846-attorney-spam-back-la-serps-raises-google-local-questions.html">Attorney Spam Back in the LA SERPs - Raises Google Local Questions</a>

We turned him in and it's now prohibited in the guidelines.
But people still do it and get away with it.

 

[Gsmithmike]

Thanks, I assume it will take a longer time to take that down right? Is there any way to report such spams directly?

 

[Linda Buquet]

It's probably a fake name too which is another violation.

So 1st I'd call and try to see if you can find out the real name and the real web site.

Then you can use report a data problem right in maps to make the corrections.

 

[mborgelt]

Piggybacking on what Linda said, I would search the phone number that they are using to see if they are using it for another listing (lots of spam campaigns have this problem in our experience) then report the listing and provide both links in your report. Hope this helps.

 

[Gsmithmike]

I honestly am surprised, how come after all these updates, Panda Penguin and pigeon still the search gets spammed.I looked at phone number there is no other directory, i also found another website Plumbers Central Los Angeles, Los Angeles Plumber, Plumbing repairs is using keyword stuffing and spamming all over page. what about that?