we uncovered a new scheme by angie’s list over the last two days. they’re insisting that one of our clients embed the link “tree service in washington dc” underneath their “super service award” badge — backlinking both to their website pages. while the latter is a fair trade, the former has definite consequences for a contractor. since our client does not serve customers in washington dc, this link would confuse customers visually. however, the backlinks build valuable equity with google for angie’s list that have the effect of pushing contractors away from the most desirable business-to-consumer (b2c) traffic. contractors can’t build a link network that’s anywhere near as large as what companies like angie’s list leverages. the result is that angie’s list sits in the driver seat for google searches — far ahead of the average local home improvement business. the worst thing about this practice is that they are charging to display the super service award, and they are hurting their own members!
when approached about the subject, their “brand enforcement coordinator” and “search marketing manager” were both impressed that we knew what we we’re talking about. however, they remained as determined and strategic as ever in their tactics. they didn’t seem too keen on our idea that they pay for the “tree service in washington dc” backlink. how about trading the backlink for the ability to display the super service award? nope. pay for our award and for our marketing, even though we have a sophisticated in-house marketing team and you are a local business who outsources for all of the marketing you do. you probably even struggle a bit to maintain a regular marketing budget. we don’t, and you can’t leverage the extensive network. oh well. unbelievable!
contact me offline and i’ll happily share further details about the email exchange i had with angie’s list. i kept all of their correspondences.
