Marketing_Guy - 3:04 pm on Oct 4, 2012 (gmt 0)

Do we try and fix the existing or start over with a new site?

Not that tough to fix IMO. Just need to take a long hard look at the site that's affected. I've yet to see an example where the problem isn't obvious. After that you can make the judgement call as to whether it's more cost effective to fix or start again - it should be a simple choice.

Wouldn't recommend starting again and following the same strategy as before though.

FYI, it's perfectly possible to recover from Panda with same rankings as before. Not sure about Penguin - tougher to fix the problem, but still doable.

These are not organic results

So what? I've got dozens of clients making millions each month from local listings on top of their organic, PPC and other marketing efforts. It's a tool to be used and it's effective. Where's the problem?

You also assume too much about the intention behind the search - mainly, that a small business should be number 1. It shouldn't. Google isn't there to act as a slightly more functional Yellow Pages - their goal is to provide information, not sales leads.

The first page of results has:

1. 7 box results with a bunch of different businesses offering the service.
2. A map of the city, pinpointing those businesses.
3. Some review sites.
4. A couple of news pages listing top suppliers.
5. Directories listing more suppliers.

Refer to my first post in this thread about a customer's decision making process.

Only the Action stage (the purchase) is served if Google were to return only business results. However, with the SERPs as above, the customer can identify, compare, review and locate local businesses via the first page of results.

That gives the little guy several different ways to have a presence in the customers decision making process - and doesn't need to hire an SEO to do it.