Changing Google's "Related Searches"

[johnser]

Help please!

Client site is an authority in Italy with sitelinks, loads of backlinks & good history.

When I search for "Company Name", on the top of the SERPs the related search is "Company Name Scam" = not good.

They're a genuine company, there is 1 negative article about them online and we seriously doubt many people search for "Company Name Scam" - which I understand is normally the trigger for the Related Searches.

The problem does not appear on G.com / co.uk / fr / de etc
Just their local country SERPs on G.it

Note that the Keyword tool & Insights for Search don't show enough data for "Company Name Scam"

Any ideas on how to remove this "Related Search" or get it changed to something else?

Thanks in advance
J

[tedster]

I hate to bring bad news, but I don't think you can have any effect on what Related Searches are suggested.

[johnser]

Thanks Tedster.

If we ran multiple queries targeting a different similar keyword via multiple proxies, do you reckon that might have any effect on shifting what's there?

[tedster]

I think that those queries would look artificial to Google and be disregarded to a large degree. You could try, I guess. I wouldn't be all that hopeful, but there may not be a very big downside.

This is an interesting challenge - I don't know of any communication channel that Google offers to deal with this kind of issue. I suppose you could use the reconsideration request in a non-standard way just to get a message through to someone.

Have you clicked on that related search and assessed the urls that are returned?

[johnser]

We tried that - if there were lots of articles that claimed the company was scamming its clients I could maybe understand the problem but there isn't.

"company name scam" shows 5 results on the SERPs and all from the same site. I can't even find the actual source on the live pages - they're all cached!

Will try the re-inclusion request as you suggest.
Is there any trigger you'd recommend I use? (eg - "paidlink")

Thanks
J

[tedster]

No particular trigger - just explain the situation, in a simple and straighforward manner. I would definitely include the "5 results" factor. It sounds pretty bogus and that information might trigger some action. At this point in time, it sounds like Google's Related Searches is more of a negative influence on your client's reputation than the one website alone could ever be.

[johnser]

Exactly - Thx for that.
If we get it sorted, I'll let you know.
J

[potentialgeek]

I remember when Google did this for John Edwards. It is automated based on search frequency. For him it was John Edwards affair. (This was long before he admitted it.) It is actually not uncommon for people to search "Company X scam" in industries that are known to have long-running problems.

p/g