It was only a couple of weeks ago, when anybody could do a Google search for Cothron's Safe & Lock and find a bogus toll-free phone number that put some people's security in jeopardy.
Cothron's conducted an email campaign to get the phone number removed from Web, and they succeeded.
"We haven't gotten any more phone calls from customers saying that someone was out there, and they're wondering when we're coming back – or they had a problem and were wondering when we were coming out to fix it," Cothron's manager Chris Smith said.
But just because Google has pulled the phony phone number, Cothron's, and other businesses similar to it aren't out of the woods yet.
Search engine optimization consultant and CEO of Apogee Search, William Leake said companies need to do several things to ensure safety. One of them is protecting the company name.
"Think about some of the other ways that people can misspell your business name and try to buy those as well," he said.
If not, Leake said scammers could purchase a Web address and do whatever they want to take a business's customers and harm its reputation.
Leake said any business should be registered with the big three, Google, Yahoo, and MSN. In registering with one of the three search engines, only the business owner can add and delete information, not scammers.
Leake also reccomends business owners get in the habit of searching their business online to monitor what may appear.
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Beating Internet scammers
Watch what Apogee Search CEO has to say about protecting your business from scammers.
 
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"You have to keep looking every week, every month. Build it in to your schedule, and look for primary industry searches," Leake said.
Cothron's now routinely checks out what's online.
"I know some of our dispatcher personnel can check on it every few days to make sure the numbers are still correct, stop by the Web site and make sure those numbers are coming up correctly," he said.
Vigilance is the key in protecting your business, because no matter what you do, scammers may still find a way to cause harm and hack your customers and business. In the end, customers may end up being your saving grace.
"If you have a good business, one of your best early warning signs that something's going awry is that your loyal customer base will come tell you," Leake said.
That is exactly what happened with Cothron's Safe & Lock and they are extra leery of scammers now.
Experts said out of the three major search engines, the one that's used the least by consumers is also the safest. Leake said MSN's confirmation criteria for business listings is more stringent than that of Google or Yahoo.
