Google Listing

[Greg Blank]

Over the years of having a business phone i have seen all sorts of dubious inquiries most get fended off. For a the last few years been getting up date calls for Google listings. So is it a scam & Does it cost money?

[Leigh]

The business next door to me pays $8 every time somebody clicks on his link to be at the top
of the listings when anyone searches for his services in the DC metropolitan area.

He does about $2Mil a year off of that link.

Not sure this is what you're talking about. Make sure any contract you sign is directly with Google, not some third party.

- Leigh

[brucetaylor]

Oh my. There are so many kinds of "Google listings." Organic search engine results, Google Places, pay-per-click ads, and on and on. They are all "Google listings" and they are all different and all serve different purposes. Most of the cold call solicitations are scams.

My son runs a company that helps local service businesses rank well in several Google listing results and charges $199 a month, my brother owns a big search engine optimization company that charges tens of thousands a month for multinational clients. If you want to rank on Google, figure out what you want the ranking to do for you. Read up on the subject before you pay anyone to do anything for you.

A lot of the work is very user friendly and you can do it yourself.

[Ed Richards]

The rash of calls I have been getting lately are form third party google resellers, or at least that is how they describe themselves. Time for the 10 foot pole.

[Greg Blank]

I thought about the pay per click advertising at one point and decided the hassle of answering a lot of questions just did not seem worth the effort, as a photographer and artist running a business is a creativity killer to an extent. I started the process with Google, giving Google some information. I got one letter announcing a special sign up period- for pay per click ads. I never followed through, however I have gotten a fair amount of these calls- for some time- recently its just been a bit more prevalent. Typically I ignore all 800 number calls to my phone (my cell)- they tend to be from solicitors, I ported my line to my cell numerous years back. Anyway most of these are robo calls coming from a variety of places around the country. Its like Ed says- I think,....ten foot pole time. Thanks Guys!