Hijacking the Verified Knowledge Panel | Hacker News Reader

Hijacking the Verified Knowledge Panel

yvoschaap.com

192 pointsyvoschaap28 comments

I once helped a friend get his bar on Google Maps by claiming the business. They send a physical letter to the address of the bar.

How do they go about claiming other people’s business? Do they just say “yeah, I own the pizza parlor on food street 3, Ohio, but send verification to startup avenue 10, Silicon Valley”?

I forget this part in my blog post, but it goes like this. Once the website is accepted as the official website of the business, you can claim ownership by proving ownership of that website.

Given Slice owns the (fake official) website, it is instantly verified.

See: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7107242?hl=en

> If you’ve already verified your business’s website with Google Search Console, you may be able to verify your listing instantly.

And all of a sudden Slice is almost guaranteed to get the online orders for any restaurant. Pretty slick. Also pretty disgusting. Sounds like something Google should fix, and have every interest to fix.

How does Google verify the official website piece? That seems to be the bootstrapping moment that enables this whole --scam-- growth hack.

Holy caw!

I didn't know that GMB can be verified only with SearchConsole ownership!

How did they got #1 and #2 results above real website which even has shorter domain name? My guess: They bought off fake URL in various yellow pages listing which Google then aggregates to believe it is the official URL.

I'm guessing that Slice just has a big team of engineers that have figured out how to game Google's SEO, and the real restaurant doesn't.

Businesses built wholly on top of another business, much less a flaw in how another business operates a tiny portion of their overall business, are doomed to fail. They are 1 policy change at Google away from losing their intake funnel -- a funnel that provides no value to anyone but Slice, but that is a separate discussion.

I just think of Sliceline from Silicon Valley, but like a digital version of switching boxes.

wasn't there a B plot in Silicon Valley (the show) about something like this? a pizza based start up doing unethical things in the name of growth?

yea, the company (I forget the name) was ordering Domino's or something, and then repackaging the pizza in the fake companies branded pizza boxes and delivering them.

Sliceline. Almost the same business model as the Doordash story that broke a week or so ago.

That story gave me a good laugh! Not really funny, so, as it was real businesses suffering from it.

Are they buying .com and .net tld's to host a fake website for every single business, just to outrank them on google? Is that cheaper than just paying for the ad?

these hyper-specific TLD's are likely quite cheap.

What do the local restaurants say? Because the problem with Grubhub was that they phished the businesses' customers - no permission or relationship with the local businesses themselves.

My understanding of Slice is that they work directly with the pizza shops, so do they have this as a part of their agreement?

According to this HN user there were at least some instances of Slice doing this without permission:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16824992

> Because the problem with Grubhub was that they phished the businesses' customers - no permission or relationship with the local businesses themselves.

Actually, Grubhub did have a relationship with those businesses. I imagine it’s very similar to what’s going on here. The business owners assume signing up with Grubhub/Slice means you get in the app and you pay a fee for those leads, which seems fair enough. What they don’t realize is the agreement also allows them to do any “online marketing” for you and claim any lead they drive you. They interpret that to be permission to outrank you on Google and cannibalize your free leads.

Not sure if exactly similar but I had to get a tow a while back and the first number I used on Google was not a local tow company. It was an SEO thing where they charge higher and then call the local tow company, I guess good on them but yeah idk... I suppose I did get what I wanted(a tow truck).

This happened with locksmiths too https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/your-money/lead-gen-sites...

Surely, Google will quickly ban Slice like they do users who violate their terms.

Just kidding. Slice has ad money to spend! They'll get a gentle slap on the wrist.

Whenever I find an instance of this in the wild (such as [1]), I try to add the proper website as a correction, but Google typically will not accept the change. I assume this is because the website URL was added by the "owner".

In other instances where I suggest edits to Google Places, they are accepted almost immediately, since I am a decently-ranked Local Guide.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347930

As of 2016, Google refused to get involved in business ownership disputes, and left the final determination to whoever claimed the business first:

https://cdn.verticalmeasures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/...

Has this improved since then?

According to the article, they aren't spending anything though. Theyre just making fake websites and using them to claim un-claimed Google My Business profiles (which cost nothing to create or maintain).

How on earth aren't these guys behind the bars yet?

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23346971

I disagree, this is not a dupe. That is a fluff piece for the company about how they did the hard legwork of signing up customers. This post suggests that they're fraudulently registering these business as their own.

Totally not a dupe. Your link is to the "official" Slice version, this submission is taking a more critical look. As there are a lot of main page submissions covering the same topic at the same time, it would be great to keep both up.

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