Business name appearing in Google Search results to other sites

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Business name appearing in Google Search results to other sites

martyyn

1971 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 772

ID Verified

#284346 15-Apr-2021 12:00

I had a call from someone yesterday who's business name is on page after page of Google Search results with what appear to be random domain names all linked to adult sites.

He has no web presence himself (other than linkedin) but it looks like an excerpt of a newspaper article on him has been taken with the titles of the search results being sometimes relevant to the business/article and sometimes not.

I've not seen anything like this before but after going through Google there used to be a form you could fill in to have the search results removed but all the links to it now return a generic help page and it seems like the best we can do is add the url's to the "remove outdated content form" and hope for the best. Others seem to have had very mixed success with this.

Does anyone have any other suggestions ?

BlakJak

1329 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 735

Trusted

#2693223 15-Apr-2021 12:55

Do the search results lead the viewer to draw incorrect conclusions about the business?

No signature to see here, move along...

martyyn

1971 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 772

ID Verified

#2693252 15-Apr-2021 13:36

Given the subject matter the links take you to it's very much a yes to answer your question. Some of it is quite eye watering.

He told me yesterday he hasn't slept for a month because no-one he called would help him.

robjg63

4160 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1425

Subscriber

#2693292 15-Apr-2021 15:13

Could they have some words or terms on pages that might also have another meaning?

Do any pages accidentally have some metadata tags set to indicate adult content?

See https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-safe-search-filtering-seo/

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

martyyn

1971 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 772

ID Verified

#2693299 15-Apr-2021 15:37

Maybe I wasn't clear. This person does not have a website themselves, not does their business.

They have searched for their name in Google and after the first two pages there is page after page of results with dodgy domains and dodgy meta titles but with a meta description which appears on a website they were part of two years ago (not their own business).

The titles in the search results all appear to be made up ("address in reply", "upcoming events" and "Wednesday, 9 August, 2017 - Volume 724")

The domains themselves are clearly made up with subdomains such as "the", "should" and "when" with TLD's of "tk", "cf" and "ga"

I spoke to him again today and he said it's been like this for a few weeks. He received an email a couple of months ago suggesting something similar to this might happen if he didn't pay $20k. He assumed it was spam and deleted it.

Dynamic

4015 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1849

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2693302 15-Apr-2021 15:44

Hmmm.... it looks to me like this is manually targeted and the web sites are out of your control and your client's control. As you probably know, I could register a domain martyyn-is-a-plonker.ga or similar and fill it with any nasty stuff I liked, and there is very little you could do to take that down short of legal intervention, if you could find me or track down the site host to try and have them take it down.

Can you trace the web site registrants and ask your client to make a Police complaint? Start asking the relevant domain hosts or site hosts to take the sites down? Google could also take some action to block the results, but good luck getting hold of a human to actually help.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

martyyn

1971 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 772

ID Verified

#2693315 15-Apr-2021 16:19

I hear you @dynamic but how is it there are hundreds of domains and results ?

When you click on one of the links you end up at what appears to be a genuine website (but for adult services). Do we click on result to find all the domains they link to and then make complaints to all of them ? He was almost in tears explaining all this to me yesterday. He's not going to like having to do that.

I've added a couple of dozen to the Google "Remove outdated content" form and a couple have been approved, but every other request has been denied.

Mighty Ape

Shop now at Mighty Ape (affiliate link).

frankv

5705 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3666

Lifetime subscriber

#2693318 15-Apr-2021 16:25

martyyn:

I hear you @dynamic but how is it there are hundreds of domains and results ?

My guess is that to get round the spam filters, and maybe to get up the top of the returned results from Google searches, they've pasted into their porn website some random text which happens to include the bloke's business name. Then they've pointed lots of domains to their site.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80646 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41024

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#2693321 15-Apr-2021 16:34

Is it an option for your client to have a small, slick website created with just enough pages to get on top of those results?

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

Oblivian

7345 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2117

ID Verified

#2693322 15-Apr-2021 16:34

Almost certainly blackhat article spinning, cloaking or similar.

Find it a lot for some obscure searches recently. And even when they look legitimate and not obviously x rated, they redirect to malicious sites that thankfully AV picks up and blocks

If it's wording from an article they featured on, an a website they were associated with previous and not anymore/gone. There will likely have been some form of lapsed domain pickup they are abusing the use of. Or simply using to fool the searches.

One of my sites recently we decided to abandon the .org version of the domain. Very little traffic that people associate with now. Someone noticed, grabbed it, somehow had HTTP crawled it during the grace period. Re-posted most the front pages it on the newly renewed domain (lol at them for paying for it in the hope we would demand to buy it back!) but filled it full of links to malicious locations just so google would follow them all.

Unless you can pick it's doing it to fool search engines and reported it. Probably a little stuffed.

Dynamic

4015 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1849

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2693323 15-Apr-2021 16:35

If your client has a local enemy, finding and prosecuting the culprit may be your best answer and making them undo whatever they have done. If your client was semi-randomly targeted and the culprits are international... well I wish I had a better answer for you.

In parallel, try and reach a human at Google via as many methods as you can think of, including social media channels.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

martyyn

1971 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 772

ID Verified

#2693339 15-Apr-2021 16:58

@freitasm : I did wonder about that, it wouldn't take too long to set something up but I was hoping we might be able to stop it rather than cover it up.

@Oblivian : The wording is still on the old website. It's not something which was picked up after lapsing. Given he left two years ago, I'm surprised he's still on the site to be honest.

I've just noticed one of the result titles is actually a local newspaper. There was an issue last year where they (the newspaper) claimed to have been "hacked". They wouldn't go into details when I called them to find out what had happened. They just changed their email address to another @xtra account and moved on ! But another of my clients had problems with their email being spoofed for months with people phoning every day to say we were sending them malware.

Mighty Ape

Shop now at Mighty Ape (affiliate link).

jarledb

Webhead
3319 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1983

Moderator

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2693365 15-Apr-2021 18:41

I would look into doing DMCA take downs if they are using content taken from other sites.

That said, anything on the third page of Google is basically invisible. Virtually nobody goes there.

Jarle Dahl Bergersen | Referral Links: Want $50 off when you join Octopus Energy? Use this referral code
Are you happy with what you get from Geekzone? Please consider supporting us by making a donation or subscribing.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1184

#2693481 15-Apr-2021 20:13

jarledb:

I would look into doing DMCA take downs if they are using content taken from other sites.

That said, anything on the third page of Google is basically invisible. Virtually nobody goes there.

There's.. a third page? What?

On a less useless note, I'm not clear that I'm picturing the issue, as it seems from your examples the titles are pretty generic. Where does your clients content come in? Is there any way you can share (privately if preferred) the search terms to enable a more direct assessment?

gzt

18671 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 7805

Lifetime subscriber

#2693498 15-Apr-2021 20:47

freitasm: Is it an option for your client to have a small, slick website created with just enough pages to get on top of those results?

This is the answer and it doesn't even need to be slick. The domain name alone will sort it out. Even one page and getting a few links from your business twitter will do it imo. Use Google sites or whatever it's called now, buy a domain and it's over bar a few likes on Facebook

martyyn

1971 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 772

ID Verified

#2693666 16-Apr-2021 10:21

Thanks everyone.