Google Places Scams to Watch Out For #googleplaces #localseo

[Linda Buquet]

Welcome to the brand new and TEMPORARY home of the Google Places Forum.
Eventually this forum will move to our sister site at <a href="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/">Catalyst eMarketing</a>.​

My friend Miriam Ellis, just posted a great warning about how to avoid Google Places scams and I posted an extortion scam nightmare one of my clients is going through right now too.

<a href="http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=972">Charlatan’s Web – Identify Local SEO Scammers Before They Bite You</a>

Let’s muck out the barnyard together. Want to get my goat? Then find yourself a trusting small business owner, misguide him, take his money and proceed to trash his Local web presence, and yes, I’ll get madder than a wet hen. As the importance of Local Search grows by leaps and bounds, what a tangled web is being woven by charlatans who are making a living off of local business owners who lack education about the rules of the game and are, thus, very vulnerable sitting ducks!

My client's $1200 Google Places Extortion Scam Nightmare

Then see my latest Google Places scam horror story in the comments.

I have more to add based on a case I am working on right now. I sometimes train SEOs on advanced Places optimization and then coach/mentor them on tough cases. I passed a lead to my mentee to work on, but it was so complicated I had to jump in and help.

WORD TO THE WISE – DO NOT LET AN SEO CREATE A PLACE PAGE IN THEIR OWN GOOGLE ACCOUNT – BE SURE THEY SET IT UP IN YOURS.

Long story short, client hired a local SEO. When he tried to part ways, the SEO held his Place page hostage and said if you ever stop paying me the $200 per month I’ll ruin your rankings, sell your Place page to a competitor and I’ll get you in trouble with Google. The scammer’s Place page was of course filled with spam and violations including the worst – city added to biz name.

So then the client hired another local SEO that said he knew how to steal the listing back. The 2nd SEO also created a listing in his own account. That listing was filled with spam and he could not steal the account. So CLIENT created a Place page which promptly got suspended.

Then he came to me to unravel the mess. I told him not to do ANYTHING – that I would call the SEO #1 and get his account back, with threats of outing him on the Google forum and reporting to Google if I had to. Client agreed to sit tight.

The next day before I could even call the scammer SEO the client had called him, himself, and gave him 1200 to buy back the account. (Which I was not even going to use because I was afraid of all the violations – I was just going to strip it then nuke it.)

So I get the log in to the scammer SEO account and guess what. The second I look at the account I can tell it’s in PURGATORY, so is dead, useless, never to be revived anyway. The client, against my recommendation paid 1200 for an account that was useless.

Client got access to the 2nd SEO’s Place page and I changed password and cleaned up all the violations there. But the whole thing is still a mess and we are charging him extra for all the extra accounts we have to unravel and fix, including his suspended listing.

So I echo what Miriam said – get a PRO to do your listing, but be sure it’s an ETHICAL PRO that won’t create long term harm and cost you more in the long run. You get what you pay for and with Google it pays to do things right.