Question

Topic: SEO/SEM

Website Appearing High In Googlesearch Results

Posted by Anonymous on 1/25/2011 at 7:14 PM ET 125 Points
Hi,

We are experiencing the following issue: when searching for our company name in Google, one of the top 5 results is Glassdoor reviews page. This page used to be way back on pages 3-4 and has crept back again to first page (there are no new reviews or new content on it).

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening? What factors will affect that page showing up so high in search results for our company name? What can we do to permanently suppress it to at least page 2?

Thanks, will greatly appreciate any insight.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by modza on 1/25/2011 at 8:24 PM Accepted
    This is an example of why SEO is only partly science. I would guess that the main source of the problem is that Google changes its algorithm for unknown reasons at erratic intervals. It takes many factors into account, but what's new is the ever-increasing weighting of Twitter and Facebook mentions -- and other social links.

    So the fact that your reviews page has not changed (freshness of content being one factor Google considers) may be outweighed by increasing web traffic for glassdoors.com and Twitter and FB mentions of glassdoor --not specific to you at all. Or maybe there are specific references to your glassdoor reviews in Twitter and Facebook (and YouTube, hi5, orkut, Linkedin, etc.)

    The other possibility is that the other mentions of your company are dropping, so it's not just glassdoors climbing.

    I can suggest a couple of approaches: find people who will comment favorably on glassdoors for you so that the negative reviews are at least balanced by more favorable ones -- and/or beef up your own SEO, Twitter and FB and other social mentions, so that they rise again, pushing glassdoors back down.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 1/25/2011 at 9:02 PM Accepted
    It could be is that specific page now has some strong incoming links. If you really want to hide the page, use a robots.txt file to exclude the page (for example, see: https://www.antezeta.com/blog/avoid-search-engine-indexing).
  • Posted by excellira on 1/25/2011 at 9:08 PM Member
    There are many reasons but it would be helpful if you could clarify some details.

    First, what is your domain and the URL you're looking to suppress? Is it one of your URLs or is it a competing site?

    If you don't care to publish this here please contact me through my profile and I'll post my answer here.
  • Posted by modza on 1/26/2011 at 1:21 PM Member
    As Karen and I mentioned, to the extent you can, you should really address the root of your question, which is the negative image your company has.

    One way to begin is to do a quick Net Promoter Score survey of your staff (and former staff, to the extent possible). NPS asks just one question: On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend [your company] as a place to work?

    You keep 8-10 (top scores) and 1-3 (bottom scores), and the ratio of the number of staff falling into each group is your baseline of employee satisfaction. If it's not highly positive, then you have a widespread problem, not just a grumbler or two or three. And HR and management should figure out what's wrong and try to fix it! (More info on NPS at netpromoter.com)
  • Posted on 1/27/2011 at 1:52 AM Member
    Hello, I agree with modza and Karen. While this certainly will not fix your problem immediately, maybe read what the reviews are and work internally with other departments in your company to fix the root problem.

    I think it's safe to say that transparency is going to be more important than ever whether we like it or not. Sites like Glassdoor, Wikileaks, and Quora are going to be major game changers, and we should try to embrace it rather than suppress it.

    ..easier said than done :)
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