Local SEO plays a critical role in helping businesses connect with nearby customers and can help small to medium-sized enterprises compete more effectively with large brands.
However, the hyper-competitive nature of local search rankings mean that not everyone is playing the game fairly.
Some businesses and local SEO “professionals” engage in something called black hat search engine optimization, an set of unethical SEO practices designed to artificially inflate a business’s rankings, often by intentionally hurting those of competitors.
In order to protect your rankings and ensure fair competition, it’s important to understand what types of black hat tactics are used in the world of local search and how to spot them, so you can quickly identify and fight back against these shady tactics and limit their negative impact on your rankings.
The Most Common Black Hat Local SEO Tactics (And How To Combat Them)
Fake Reviews
Fake reviews are one of the biggest issues that local businesses and SEOs deal with every day.
Unfortunately, many businesses engaged in black hat SEO buy fake positive reviews to unfairly manipulate their Google Business Profile’s reputation and rankings.
Even worse, some businesses will even go so far as to buy fake negative reviews for their competitors’ profiles to hurt their ratings and local SEO.
Fortunately, Google does have a process in place for reporting and removing fake reviews, and they seem to be taking the matter more seriously as of late by starting to disable reviews for listings with suspicious review activity. However, the problem persists.
In order to fight back against fake Google Reviews, you should monitor feedback on both your own GBP listing and those of your top competitors and watch out for suspicious reviews. Here are a few red flags to keep an eye out for:
- Sudden spikes or clusters of positive (usually all 5-star) reviews on a competitor’s listing
- Sudden influx of negative reviews on your GBP
- Generic feedback that doesn’t mention any specifics about the business
- Multiple reviews with very similar language or phrasing
- Reviews left by users with little other activity
- Reviews from profiles that have rated businesses in wildly different geographic areas
- Errors in review content, such as mentioning the wrong business name or type
Of course, this can be incredibly time consuming, which is why many businesses don’t do enough review monitoring.
To help streamline the process of monitoring listings for suspicious feedback, you can use an AI-powered review analysis tool to spot patterns indicative of black hat review tactics.
Whenever you notice a suspicious review, report it immediately to Google by clicking the “Flag as inappropriate” button next to the review. If this doesn’t result in a removal, you can escalate the issue to Google support and submit further evidence to try and get the fake review removed.
Malicious Google Business Profile Edits
Another unethical local SEO practice is using the “Suggest an edit” button on a competitor’s GBP listing to manipulate the information on their profile.
For example, a competitor might maliciously attempt to change another business’s address, map pin, website URL, or business hours. These fields all directly impact local rankings, so having the wrong information in any of them can have a huge negative impact on your local search performance.
In theory, Google notifies businesses of suggested edits and gives them a chance to approve, reject, or modify them, but these notifications often get missed, filtered to spam folders, or simply don’t appear. If you don’t respond in time, Google might automatically push an unwanted edit live.
To mitigate the risks of unauthorized GBP edits, it’s a good idea to implement a Google Business Profile change monitor, such as Falcon Guard, to monitor your profile 24/7 and get notified right away if there’s any potential black hat manipulation of your business information going on. This is especially useful for multi-location businesses that have to watch out for unwanted suggested edits on multiple GBP listings.
Keyword Spamming in Business Name
Businesses and SEOs attempting to unfairly manipulate local search rankings also often stuff their GBP business titles with keywords, since keywords in business names have been shown to impact rankings.
For example, a plumbing business might change their business name to something like “Plumber for Emergency Plumbing and Drain Cleaning in [City]” or a pizza restaurant might change its name to “Best Pizza Delivery in [Neighborhood].”
This kind of keyword stuffing goes against Google’s guidelines for representing your business on Google, so report any competitors who you see doing this.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that most businesses aren’t employing black hat SEO to improve their rankings and hurt their competitors, there are plenty of people out there doing so, and it’s bad for everyone.
Knowing how to recognize black hat local SEO tactics and take the appropriate steps to fight back against them is crucial to safeguarding your rankings and keeping the local search game fair.
As long as you stay vigilant and use the right tools, including AI review analysis and a GBP change monitor, you can catch shady local SEO practices and take action before they have a chance to cause serious harm to your rankings.
And remember, as frustrating and time consuming as dealing with black hat SEO can be, it’s important to never lose sight of the most important goal: improving your own rankings through ethical local SEO practices!
