No website, no links? You’re at everyone’s mercy in Google.

While I was out, it seems techdirt had this story about a restauranteur who was concerned his business was being affected by a murder story coming up in the organic search results when his restaurant’s name, Cer….no’s Restaurant, was entered into Google. I’ve left out part here so as to not add to the mess.

Well, the publicity in the blogosphere has at least partially solved that problem, replacing the murder story with stories about the story about the story.

Ain’t link-bait amazing?

It’s always a good idea to watch your business name on Google. Even having a small website on your domain name with some nice incoming links that cover your business name are a good idea. Set your title tag and your H1 tags to the name of your business and you’ll have at least a modest defence against this. You can make the site yourself.

Postscript: The Wall Street Journal has since put together a story on Googling Your Own Name which is very similar to what I wrote about, too.

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4 Responses to “No website, no links? You’re at everyone’s mercy in Google.”

1. Mar
   10
   2007
   At 8:39 am Barry Welford Says:

   Excellent post, Scott. It’s always worth running Google Alert and Yahoo Alert on your company name. If you just move faster than whatever agencies inadvertently attempt to corner your name, then you can ride on the back of the wave. I’m currently trying to do that with SMM, which has now become Social Media Marketing. It was great when all I had to compete with were agencies such as the Society for Marine Mammalogy.
2. Mar
   15
   2007
   At 2:55 pm lnahinu Says:

   Great Post and thanks for the link-baiting material. I guess a lot of companies are now going to have to start blogs about beneficial material to avoid the bad material. I guess it comes down the telephone wire, i heard this, they heard this, and so on and so on. Great post about getting away from the bad pr.
3. Apr
   28
   2007
   At 8:30 am Snap A Picture, Save A Buck (Until You Wreck Your Car) | Finding the Sweet Spot - Building Web Businesses That Profit Says:

   [...] even a really simple one.  As I’ve said before, when you have no web site you’re leaving it up to others to dominate the search results pages for your name when searched. If I wanted to, I could post a [...]
4. May
   2
   2007
   At 11:22 am A nice mention in the Wall Street Journal | Finding the Sweet Spot - Building Web Businesses That Profit Says:

   [...] I’ve said before, if there’s any reason to have at least a small site, it would be to hold on to a listing for your own name, and to have something to link your free [...]

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