You might think that an SEO company would know better than to jerk other SEOs around, right? Not always, as this story proves.
An SEO company headed by Scott Hendison discovered that another SEO firm is providing fake locations in Google+ Local. But even worse, the offending company had more than 60 reviews from many SEOs who are respected in the industry, vouching for the SEO services of the company. Reviews were included from people such as Jill Whalen, Loren Baker, Ross Hudgens and others.
Most of the reviews provided almost perfect scores to the scamming SEO company, with many having a 29 out of 30 ranking.
What happened? After Hendison outed the company on Google+, the SEO community attacked the company quite spectacularly on the Internet. They left many bad reviews, outed the offending company and the Google+ local page was noted as spam. The fake reviews were pulled and this company now is suffering a serious backlash.
It is rather frightening that someone can create fake reviews from your name without the person being aware of it. It seems that the company created phony Google+ accounts for the SEO personalities used for the fake reviews.
So, be wary of unethical companies out there impersonating you and using your good name to earn business! Note that you can always check the reviews that your friends have left on Google+ Local from their Google+ profile.
To do this, go to a profile of a friend, click the About tab, and scroll down to the Local area. If they have any reviews, you should be able to see the number of reviews and that number should be hyperlinked to a landing page of all of those reviews.