google plus "place holder" page ranking #1

[Shepherd]

I've noticed this a couple of times, recently just now, I did a search for a local company and the first result was what seemed to be a place holder google plus page for this company. It's a page that looks like it was created by google with a button on it that says "is this your business? Manage this page". This business does not have a website but they do have a facebook page which is listed in the #4 spot.

Seems like a shady practice if google is trying to promote plus by creating fake business listing and then promoting them in the serps.

[imgur.com...]

[edited by: brotherhood_of_LAN at 11:06 pm (utc) on May 11, 2015]
[edit reason] Added a screenshot [/edit]

[brotherhood of LAN]

Is it a regular SERP, no different to the other ~9?

[Shepherd]

That's a good question, not sure, sent you a sticky.

[Shepherd]

In looking closer, the listing is not one of the regular 10 listings.

[brotherhood of LAN]

I've added a screenshot to your OP.

No idea whether the G+ page was given preference as some kind of non-organic SERP, though it looks like the SERPs for said company are otherwise fairly standard (and Google does not have any better pages to serve for the query).

I'd guess the 'place holder' was a page auto-generated because of the 1 review that was left.

[glakes]

I thought Google just penalized a bunch of websites for having thin content? I guess they overlooked this one.