I can understand that the Google Places URL link pointing to the non-official site being a problem but I have no issue with a 3rd party site who built a better ranking page for a restaurant. Many restaurants still have flash-intros, PDF menus and other annoyances that make those sites far less useful than a 3rd party site that has translated all that data into something that works consistently on my phone.
The other point I would point out is that ordering online does not require working with a restaurant. Many of these delivery services are "hacking" delivery by becoming the delivery provider. They just order on your behalf, pick up the food, and drive it to your home regardless of whether the restaurant offers that option or not.
I wrote this post originally and totally agree about the Flash sites and PDF menus being debatable for those types of websites. But these restaurants have good websites and these hijacker sites aren't more useful. The Eat Street sites have a map, order online button, and a menu...and it's not sexy. The Order Ahead App is pretty solid. But it was promoting downloading an app to order food at Bar Pintxo. But Bar Pinxto wasn't even an "available option" to order. It's driving traffic to download their app and not a bit of value to the restaurant. It's OK to build a website to promote your online ordering. It's hijacking the Google Places profile that is sketchy. These restaurants are upset when I explain what happened.
I can't speak to the others, but I've worked with EatStreet before, and I know all the restaurants have signed contracts with them and EatStreet manages their websites.
These two websites do not point to each other at any point. The domain for the first website appears registered by the restaurant themselves, pointing to nameservers belonging to Dine Online - which looks like a marketing/web dev firm.
The second domain is registered by EatStreet.
Now, it seems likely to me that Azuca and EatStreet have some working relationship, most probably the same sort of relationship restaurants have with GrubHub or Seamless.
The problem here is language. EatStreet's page does not make it clear at all that this is a third party, and in fact seems to go out of its way to insinuate that this is in fact the official website for the restaurant. This seems like trademark infringement to me, but IANAL.
maybe not eat street but what about order ahead? found 3 in 10 minutes with a seperate .net domain, 2 ranked #1 over the resturants .com domain with google places pointing to it. poor form order ahead. do the restaurants know your 'takeout' site ranks ahead of them on google and the google places points to your site? is this something they agreed to?
I wrote this post. We claim their Google Places profiles in the same way the hijackers did and then submit a request to Google to update the URL back to their original URL. Here's a link: https://www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness/
With a little bit of investigation, you can see this headline is alarmist. These aren't hijackings, they are just restaurants who are authorizing other companies to manage their online presence.
I don't doubt that these restaurants might have authorized these companies to do this by signing a contract that they didn't read fully or understand. It may have been completely legal, but it's still taking advantage of these restaurants' lack of internet savvy and awareness. I spoke to them and 4 out of 4 were not aware they had authorized anything and asked me to fix it immediately. Each case varies in severity, but all the motives behind each of these cases could have been done strategically and in a way that did not compromise the restaurant's website traffic. They could add online ordering to their website. Their profiles were hijacked for a side agenda of the company who made the site.
seems a little sketch to me to be creating external domains which would be competing with the main website. like having bar pintxo's menu on a .org with google places linked to it and being ranked #1 on google. i don't see many restaurant owners agreeing to that. its one thing to have the menu under a subdomain its quite another to be competing for the same traffic. seriously?
[+] [-] calbear81|12 years ago|reply
The other point I would point out is that ordering online does not require working with a restaurant. Many of these delivery services are "hacking" delivery by becoming the delivery provider. They just order on your behalf, pick up the food, and drive it to your home regardless of whether the restaurant offers that option or not.
[+] [-] ivan_collins|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ummmmmmmmmm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] potatolicious|12 years ago|reply
http://www.azuca.net/azuca/ and https://azucasaborlatino.com/
These two websites do not point to each other at any point. The domain for the first website appears registered by the restaurant themselves, pointing to nameservers belonging to Dine Online - which looks like a marketing/web dev firm.
The second domain is registered by EatStreet.
Now, it seems likely to me that Azuca and EatStreet have some working relationship, most probably the same sort of relationship restaurants have with GrubHub or Seamless.
The problem here is language. EatStreet's page does not make it clear at all that this is a third party, and in fact seems to go out of its way to insinuate that this is in fact the official website for the restaurant. This seems like trademark infringement to me, but IANAL.
Sketchy, to say the least.
[+] [-] droithomme|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papaver|12 years ago|reply
Tarascos Mexican Restaurant
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[+] [-] MichaelGG|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivan_collins|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 10feet|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivan_collins|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SouthATL|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivan_collins|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] papaver|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] droithomme|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timothy0530|12 years ago|reply