Yelp Trying to infiltrate Local Garage Door Repair Search

 As congress investigates Google and its near monopoly over its competitors, Yelp has decided to seize an opportunity to fill in the gaps that Google is leaving open. Yelp has accused Google of giving itself self-preference in search results, especially where local SERP is concerned. A Federal Trade Commission decided in 2013 that there wasn't enough evidence to state that Yelp's claims were true, but Yelp maintains that this decision is not believed to be true.

Yelp Using Google's Failure to Their Benefit

By paying off the competition, Google managed to become the most used search engine on the modern Internet and is the main site people head to when looking up businesses, such as garage door repair companies. More often than not, Google dilutes its search results with fake garage door companies and does a poor job of getting rid of this problem, even though they claim they have taken steps to eliminated issues with Google maps and fraudulent virtual properties. Many local small businesses have suffered because of this, including garage door repair services while customers have a hard time finding reliable, reputable businesses when they search online and choose the top result that shows up in Google search, as they are led to believe that this is the most relevant.

Fraudulent companies can create fake listings for businesses such as locksmiths, water damage technicians, contractors, lawyers, garage door repair services and more. Certain lead companies like Yelp were also involved by populating search results with fake listings. Google claims to have taken down these false listings, but without changing the actual listing and advertising process, scammers can simply go through the process again and create new listings. Yelp works similarly by allowing anyone at all to create these listings, which will then appear in search results.

How Yelp’s on Your Budget

Consumers and businesses alike starting to realize that Yelp is no longer a platform that can be trusted when searching for reputable businesses. Instead, they are just a lead generating company that is concerned with generating growth and shareholders returns.

Yelp's CPC algorithm not only allows fake garage door repair, installation and contracting businesses to place ads, but the algorithm also displays businesses that don’t match up to your industry. This means that the amount you pay for your ads, which is based on the competition, ends up costing a lot more, since you need to compete with fake businesses and business that don’t necessarily related to your industry. This benefits Yelp whether they are legit businesses or not, because the more businesses that buy ads, the more money Yelp can charge them for placing ads. While business owners get a monthly bill for their ads, the more competition to be found in an industry, the more they will end up paying, and the more they'll need to increase their budget. This will increase the revenue for Yelp while costing small business owners more money, ultimately only benefiting Yelp.

The Effects on Small Businesses and Garage Door Repair Companies

If Yelp would succeed to appear at the top of Google's local search for small businesses, there are many downsides. For one, businesses lose out on local traffic, which of course means losing customers. This can cause price increase for garage door services to homeowners, can hurt the bottom line of a business and cause them to work even more to find ways to connect with and market to their customers. Having competition against dozens or sometimes even hundreds of fake businesses make this even harder to do. Local garage door companies tend to pay more and more as time goes on just to advertise in hopes of being seen. On top of this, business owners must pay good deal of money each month to Yelp to keep ads listed. If Yelp ends up getting even more exposure, local businesses will end up having to pay even more.

In Conclusion

It is clear to see why Yelp should not be allowed to infiltrating local search: its platform is designed to bring in profit without even trying to help local businesses and consumers. While Google is also designed to bring in profits, using some Google features is free when seeking online exposure. As Yelp is trying to get federal regulators to investigate Google and try to change the way that they show their search results, they do this not for any noble reason. It is solely to increase their profits without any regard for the consumers or businesses they are purported to be helping.

Using the Emergency Garage Door Opener Release

 

Although many commercial and residential garage door openers alike have emergency release function, not everyone fully understands what they are, what they do or how to use them. Because the opener is automatic, not having a good grasp on how the emergency release function works could lead to frustration and inability the operate the garage door when the motor is malfunctioning. The emergency function comes in handy in some common issues including: fire, electrical outage and mechanical breakdown.

Homeowners and residents should always check to make sure that your garage door opener is working properly. If it doesn't open and close as it should, you can troubleshoot it on your own by: making sure the batteries in the remote are charged, moving anything obstructing objects from the garage door area ensuring the sensors found on the bottom of the door's track are clear, looking for any general imperfections along the track.

If you are unable to find the cause for a faulty garage door or garage door opener, or otherwise determine that it needs repairs, get in touch with a professional garage door company. Trying to tinker with it yourself is dangerous due to the electricity involved.

Safety Tips for Garage Door Springs Repair

While garage door applications may vary from the others in their configurations, each application uses springs that support the mass of the garage door. Through methods of twisting or pulling, the garage door springs are made to create a force to counter gravity. Although garage doors can sometimes weigh more than 800 pounds, the force exerted by the springs is enough to cause serious bodily harm or worse.

Below, we will look at four essential safety tips to consider when you are performing any sort of garage door spring repair or general garage door springs replacement:

• Clear the worksite: In order to carry out a garage door spring repair, you’ll need access to the garage door’s components. On top of that, tools can fall over the back or front of any vehicles parked inside the garage, or on their windshield, damage them and cost unnecessary amounts of money. If you have any vehicles parked in the garage, be sure to pull them out as well as any valuable items that you don't want to risk. Should you find that the garage door is too heavy to lift, you should pull the vehicle forward, to the other end of the garage as far away as possible. In order to limit the risk of accidents, create a physical path across the garage door that has no obstacles, by moving them out of the way.
• Use compatible, solid torsion spring winding bars: Before you begin to wind up new torsion springs or unwind old ones, make sure you have solid winding bars that are able to be securely mounted in the garage door spring's winding cone. It measures a diameter of a half-inch, requiring you to have a half-inch torsion sprig winding bar. If you don't have this type of tool on hand, you can get in touch with a garage door repair company to have the winding bars supplied to you.
• Keep a safe buffer zone when you're working with the springs: During the process of repairing a garage door spring, when winding or unwinding the torsion spring, it is important to keep your body and head out of the way of the winding path. Because of the force that the spring creates, the high force put on the winding bars can cause harm if it slips from your grasp. This is because it will fall straight down and damage anything in its way.
• Secure the axle in place: After new garage door springs have been mounted to the proper bracket, use vice grips to ensure that the axle has been secured in place before you wind the new torsion springs. This makes sure that the garage door is secure in its closed position. Should you accidentally install the wrong size garage door springs, the force that is created by the springs will turn out to be greater than the mass of the garage door. This will cause it to pull up more quickly, which cannot just damage the garage door but can also knock you off the ladder you're on.

Those who are intent to perform garage door repair on their own, especially working on garage door springs, need to double-check that they are using the right sizes of springs. This is usually due to shopping from unreliable websites that have no qualms over selling the wrong sizes of springs without bothering to verify them with the customer.

Obtaining the Correct Garage Door Springs

 Because of the risk that is involved in replacing these springs, it is recommended that you buy your new torsion springs and garage springs from a local garage door company that is authorized to sell them. Through these companies, measurements can be taken either on site to ensure the proper fit, find out if the garage door should have 1 or 2 springs, and make necessary conversions if needed. In many cases, garage doors with 2 springs would work smoother than garage doors with a single spring system. Many customers will even take broken or worn springs to their local garage door repair companies to let them take these measurements and send them away with the proper spring size.

Remember, having the garage door in operation without the right garage door springs will damage it. A garage door that hasn’t been correctly balanced will wear down the garage door opener gears, bearings, hinges, and rollers, which could cause the garage door to go off its tracks.

Safety Tips for Garage Door Springs Repair - Conclusion

 Garage door spring repair can be a dangerous and difficult process for the untrained repairman or DIY’r, even for those with experience as a repair technician. In order to ensure the torsion springs are safely installed, it's a good idea to do plenty of research on the process and on the fundamentals of how to fix a garage door. Before going into the project, be sure you understand the actual mechanics of the systems and processes so that you can make better use of the tools you have. This could not only save valuable time, money and prevent damage to the garage door, but it could also be the difference between reducing the chance of injury and raising it.