Hacker News Reader

Comment by arbuge | Hacker News Reader

> Mr. Abuhazim tried reaching Google to explain his dilemma, but he was repeatedly routed to an offshore call center. Operators, he said, “treated me like I’m stupid.” With his businesses pushed off the first page of Google Maps results, incoming calls halved. He said he was on the verge of closing.

Google Ads customer support has been like this for many people ever since it was outsourced offshore. It is basically useless at this point.

On a different note, I do find it amazing that this business owner thought it would be a good idea to do the following:

"Last year, he was approached by a marketing firm that offered to lift his business listings on Google Maps for a fee in the tens of thousands of dollars. Mr. Abuhazim agreed to the deal."

If you wonder where that money went, see the screenshot in the article where he clearly shows an average CPC of almost $9.

View on HN

Its easy to explain — actual business people don’t understand how to work the inscrutable nature of Google. So they look for advice.

I think it’s bizarre that stuff like this is trivial for scammers but impossible for legit businesses.

My son’s catholic school has been around since 1950. A few students goofing off wrote some negative reviews, and somehow they are in a limbo where nobody can post reviews or modify the listing. I’m on the board and help with advertising... The funny thing is that it costs Google money — we can’t associate AdWords with the Maps listing. Just a few thousand bucks a year, but still money.

Why should a Catholic School be advertising on Google?

So they can attract students whose parents are searching for a school.

Seems like a crummy way to reach potential students, wouldn't you want to tap the local church's congregations? That is how the Catholic schools run in Seattle, though they don't have the same 20% non-Catholic full ride scholarship that they do in Portland (which made for a much better educational experience IMO).

The Summer Lunch Program (which has a much broader target audience/geographic area) in Seattle has experimented with online advertising, but had poor results. The keys to the kingdom really are reaching kids (and their parents) where they are, in schools, after school programs, and perhaps some online platforms (though the targeting is generally ineffective on Facebook/Google for this type of advertising).

> wouldn't you want to tap the local church's congregations?

I'm assuming they do both. I don't know about the US, but around here Catholic schools accept non-Catholics as well, and those may not be connected to the church.

Yes, Catholic schools in the US are frequently the only advanced educations for grade schoolers in nonmetropolitan areas. My folks were Methodist, and I attended a couple Catholic schools.

What is an "advanced education for grade schoolers"?

It is a less offensive way to say “alternative to systematically underfunded and failing public schools”.

Yup.

I went to a Catholic high school, despite my family being basically non-practicing Presbyterians. And in an area with a ton of private schools.

At the time public schools were a road to nowhere, and private schools were easily $20,000 in today's dollars, maybe $30,000 depending on the school. Catholic high school cost $8000 in today's dollars, and the only "downside" was a couple of mandatory masses.

My local public school did not have advanced placement classes, only regular and support for learning disabilities.

At least it had support for the learning disabled.

A few years ago I did a bit of PPC for plumbers in London the CPC was over £30.

And the fake business scams have been well known for well over a decade.

So how do they make money bidding on those keywords?

Assuming a 20% conversion rate, which is probably very generous, that's £150 per customer. Is an average plumber call in London many times more expensive than that then?

If the price is driven up by scammers, I assume they pay with stolen credit cards, etc.

This cpc could be perfectly normal, one of those keywords where the prices have always been insane.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com