Comments on: Does ReachLocal effect your websites SEO rankings?

By: Gary Kawesch

Gary Kawesch — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:06:34 +0000

I apologize if this is slightly off-topic, but it speaks to what may be ethical problems with RL.

For about a year and a half, I was using ReachLocal for SEM. My in-house internet marketing director was handling this. Unknown to me, ReachLocal was commissioning him on my buys. I learned of this after my marketing director was let go. I suspect ReachLocal may know of situations like this, and simply may just look the other way. They claim they are unaware of any other situations like this ever occurring. With their enormous outside sales force, I doubt this is the case. I would love to hear from any other advertisers who have found out they have been paying either an employed or contracted internet marketing person or firm who in turn has been commissioned by ReachLocal.

Incidentally, our organic results did drop while using RL, and our PPC ROI was MUCH IMPROVED after dropping them and doing it in-house.

By: beez

beez — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:10:17 +0000

This post is in support of Ben above. Beyond the fact that your logic is flawed, people should know that their natural search results are at risk if you create a proxy for your site for SEM purposes. It’s a fact. I have seen it happen. That is the important issue. People are placing faith in a Yellow Pages type mentality here: pay get listed…but what you should consider is IF a natural search provides a significant part of your business you should consider this carefully.

By: How to Become an Expert - I am a spammer!

How to Become an Expert - I am a spammer! — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:48:36 +0000

This is such an important topic, I wish more people would write about it, and not just spam other people’s ideas. Researched content is hard to find on the Internet these days.

By: Davin

Davin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:36:00 +0000

found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. Your peice on reachlocal was helpful for my decision.

By: internet marketing search engine specialist

internet marketing search engine specialist — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:09:16 +0000

Thanks, this is very informative since my goal is to get higher rankings and not to fail my clients. But we must also consider that SEO is somehow a trial and error practice in order to see the best result. thanks – Robert

By: admin

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:01:47 +0000

Hey Ben thanks for stopping by:

First – your post seems a bit disgruntled, is there something going on that we don’t know about? Are you an ex-employee of ReachLocal?

Your assertion that I am an employee couldn’t be any more far fetched.

ReachLocal obviously doesn’t affect SEO rankings and any true SEO will know this. Besides robots they in most cases include a Meta No,Index element.

It’s pretty easy to see what websites make it by Google (this is the one semi-intelligent suggestion you made) with a simple site:reachlocal.net. (http://www.google.com/search?q=site:reachlocal.net&hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS309US309&filter=0).

I have seen a few websites that have been indexed by Google from ReachLocal and have also seen the duplicated page was removed and had to affect on the advertisers website.

If you would like any further information about results, they will be posted on the SEMShowdown.com results page.

Best of luck!

By: Natalie

Natalie — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:46:52 +0000

LMAO ‘if you we’re any good at SEO.’ I think Ben is a disgruntled ex-employee from RL what do you think Sean?

Ben good post… I am a fellow SEO and your ridiculous outrageous post was at the very least humorous.

I don’t want to speak for Sean but yes you are correct .htaccess if flawed that’s why they (ReachLocal) from what I can see takes the extra step and adds a Meta No Index file as well.

Thank you,

Natalie

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:33:06 +0000

sorry – your review is flawed. You assume that the Google bots work perfectly with robots.txt and unfortunately that is simply not the case not matter what the folks at Google say. And if you were any good at SEO you would know this.

I have personally seen way to many of these ReachLocal affects to accept your erroneous conclusions. You sample one site and state that it was the SEO consultants work. while that may or may not be the case, this has happened on hundreds of sites. Could it be that you are a ReachLocal rep and thus the reason you are willing to only work with one example to reach your conclusion?

Ben

By: Palapple

Palapple — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:04:52 +0000

Thanks for sharing. Search engine optimization is indeed one of the most crucial areas in Internet marketing, it is a perfect bridge between technology and business….

By: Marc C

Marc C — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:58:59 +0000

I was under the impression they did – thanks for this it really helped with my decision.

Have you noticed all of the horror stories out there?