Don’t Let Your Local Business Listing Be Hijacked
ByWhen someone says hijacking, do you think of a terrorist barging onto a plane and flying to Cuba? That’s not what we’re talking about here! We’re talking about a nasty trick where someone steals your business identity on Google Local Business.
How does this happen? It’s actually pretty simple. Until you “own” your Google Local Business listing anyone can come in and make changes to it as if they were you. When businesses are presented in Google, the data is typically pulled in from other online resources such as InfoUSA or YellowPages. While this is fairly bare bones information, it should in most cases be an accurate reflection of your business name, location and phone number. You can find your information by searching for your business name or address in Google Maps.
So, how can your listing be hijacked? Anyone can go into a Google Local Business listing and claim it as their own. The hijacker creates a Google email address and then a Local Business Account. They find the listing they want and change the phone number and the URL of the business (or add one if there isn’t one). The hijacker also slightly changes the address so Google thinks it’s actually a new listing. Google provides a phone verification process and bingo, your listing is hijacked. Subsequent to this, your business name could also be changed and you are now gone from view by Google searchers in your locale!
You may think this is a far fetched notion, but in fact it is not. During work on Bainbridge Island (near Seattle WA) for a chiropractor we discovered their local business listing was actually referring to a chiropractor across the street. We first thought Google had simply made a mistake with similar businesses being so close together. Upon further investigation we found out the other business’s web site manager had done this, and for other businesses on the island.
Here are two examples, one is clear the other kind of amazing (the results only lasted for a day or so around April 1). Notice The Inn on Lake Superior website is actually for the South Pier Inn.
There have also been more widely organized efforts at hijacking local business listings. In San Diego an organized effort was taken against florists. Individual florist listings were hijacked and their website URL was changed to an online florist in Canada. As most floral business is done over the web today most people never noticed there had been any change (both the store owners and customers). The hijacker had actually created an affiliate account at the Canadian online florist and was raking in affiliate commissions.
While your business may still be found by other means (Yellow Pages and normal search results for instance), a good number of searches may be hijacked to the “new” bushiness phone number and/or URL. This causes lost sales to you and potential confusion to searchers (your potential customers).
Is this happening a lot right now? No, however once the word gets out this is possible, it will occur more frequently. The real worry on a local basis is your competitor changing your information (URL and phone number) to theirs. They could even change the location to theirs and you would disappear!
How can this be prevented from happening? It’s helpful to remember a time worn cliché from the sports world, the best defense is a good offense! The most important thing to do is to claim your listing on Google right now. Claiming your listing and creating an effective local business profile protects your listing from hijackers as well as achieving a high ranking in Google local search ranking for you.
To learn how to create effective listings be sure to refer to the April 2009 Practical Social Media newsletter for a full account of how to claim and create your listing. If you conduct some effective keyword research to determine how best to create your company listing and develop unique categories you will find your competitor is the one who is scrambling to keep up.
Remember, if it can happen to The White House it can happen to you!
Authors- Richard Geasey and Shannon Evans specialize in creating highly optimized local business listings in Google, Yahoo and MSN Live. Prevent hijackings and achieve high search rankings in these search engines by contacting Rich at richgeasey@gmail.com and Shannon at pshannon.evans@gmail.com for a free consultation.
