Discovery of The Newest Way Malicious Competitors Can Steal Businesses' Local SEO

Malicious competitors can use Google Business Profile to steal SEO by suggesting a change to the map location. If this happens, learn how to reclaim your SEO.

TAMPA, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES, May 8, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Image Building Media, a full-service internet marketing company in Tampa, Florida, announces the newest way malicious competitors can steal businesses' local SEO using Google Business Profile.

After learning that its SEO had been stolen by someone suggesting an edit to their Google Business Profile map location, Image Building Media found that the same thing happened to many of their Tampa competitors.

"Someone changed our Google Business Profile map location without our knowledge. To do this, they did not have to change our business address. To our surprise, Google did not notify us before making the change suggested by an anonymous person, who could be a malicious competitor," said Allan McNabb, VP of Image Building Media.

The process of stealing their local SEO in this instance, according to Allan McNabb, was:

#1: Someone suggested a Google Business Profile edit for our map location, changing it to a different city. In our case, they changed our map location from Tampa to Hudson, Florida, a distance of 45 miles.

#2 Google did not notify us and made the suggested edit. This changed our business's Plus Code, showed us in a different city on Google Maps, and removed us from the coveted 3-pack on the first page of Google.

#3 As a result, our business's SEO shifted to the new map location, in our case, from Tampa to Hudson, Florida.

#4 This was done not only to us but also to several of our Tampa competitors. Therefore, we concluded that a malicious competitor most likely did this act, eliminating their top Tampa SEO competition."

If this happens to your business, you must suggest an edit to correct the Google Business Profile map location, according to McNabb. "In our case, Google corrected the map location, and we reclaimed our SEO in a few hours."

As a result of this incident, Image Building Media suggests that businesses manually monitor their Google Business Profile for malicious activity, including unauthorized edits. "We manually audit our Google Business Profile weekly," McNabb concluded.

To help businesses with this problem, Image Building Media created an article and video: Newest Way Malicious Competitors Can Steal Your Local SEO.

Allan McNabb
Image Building Media
+1 813-421-5049
contact@imagebuildingmedia.com

Newest Way Malicious Competitors Can Steal Your Local SEO via Google Business Profile