Google ranking promises sold to tradespeople

The local pack, the map results for "plumber near me" and the like, is a Google Business Profile result. Google's help page says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity.

Relevance is how well your profile matches the search. Distance is how far you are from the person searching. Popularity, which Google also describes as prominence, is how well known you are: links, reviews, and ratings. A company cannot move your van closer to the customer. They cannot buy the distance factor.

What they can do, and what is worth paying a person for if you will not do it yourself, is ordinary profile work: the right category, services you actually offer, hours that are true, photos of your jobs, and a habit of asking for reviews. That work can change whether you show up. It cannot be promised as "number one in the map pack" for a town, because the person searching from the other side of that town is a different distance away.

Google Business Profile is free. If the proposal's main deliverable is "we will set up your Google listing", compare that with doing the profile checklist yourself before you add a monthly fee.

First place is easy on a phrase nobody searches. Five odd words, your trade, your postcode, and a material you rarely use, can be "position one" in a report and bring no calls. Ask which queries, in which town, and ask to see Search Console for your own site, not a screenshot of a rank tracker on its own.

A useful report is enquiries: calls, form fills, messages, from people in the area you cover, for work you want. A rank on a phrase you did not choose is how a guarantee gets kept without a job landing.

Give an SEO read access to Search Console if they need to look. Google's hiring guidance says not to hand over write access for an audit. You remain responsible for what they publish on your site. If they add pages you would not show a customer, those pages are still yours when Google looks at the site.

This is the promise that sounds like coverage and often produces doorway pages. Google describes doorway abuse as pages created to rank for specific, similar searches, which lead people to something less useful than a real destination. The examples include many domain names or pages aimed at particular cities that funnel people to one page, and substantially similar pages that are closer to a list of search results than to a site a person can browse.

A page for a town you work in, which states the services you do there and how to hire you, is a normal local page. Fifty pages that swap the town name and dump everyone onto one generic contact form are the pattern in Google's policy. If Google treats them as spam, the site you paid for can lose visibility, and Google says you are responsible for the companies you hire.

Ask to see one town page and the next town page side by side before you pay for "all the areas". If only the place name changed, you are paying for a pattern Google has published as abuse. The same test applies to a seller who wants a separate website for every town.

Use Google's own list, in your words.

• Which queries, in which places, and what change do you expect, over what number of months?
• How will you measure it: Search Console and enquiries, or a rank screenshot?
• Will every change to the site be listed, and can I refuse one?
• Do you follow Google's spam policies, including the doorway rules?
• Are you interested in this business, or is the proposal the same paragraph you send every trade?

Walk away from a special relationship with Google, a priority submit, a guarantee of first place, and an email you did not ask for that says you are "not listed on Google". Google says it receives those emails too, and to treat them like any other unsolicited pitch. A phone call that threatens to delete the listing unless you pay is a separate script, set out in calls and letters that pretend to be Google or Companies House.

Business-to-business advertising still has to be truthful. A ranking guarantee in an advert can be complained about to the Advertising Standards Authority. That complaint does not cancel a contract on its own. The contract checks for a monthly website or marketing retainer are in the monthly website piece.

Finish the Google Business Profile: category, services, hours, service area you actually cover, photos of your work, and a review asked for at the end of each job. Put the same name, phone number and services on your own website. Describe one service properly, including where you go and what happens when someone gets in touch.

That will not put you first. Google has said there is no such promise available. It will make you eligible to be understood, which is the part a guarantee pretends to skip.

Tradehand does not sell a ranking position. The assistant publishes the services, areas and reviews you actually have, and answers the enquiry. Where Google lists that site is Google's decision.