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Category: Local Listings

Examine the impact of maintaining consistent and accurate local listings on your local SEO strategy.

  • Rich_Coffman


    My I just verified 2 new locations via "Google My Business" (G+) for a client. - the purpose is to get visibility and rank in the google maps for those 2 new areas. These locations are not storefronts but are verified in G+ as branches of the business. The G+ listings are set to display zip codes and not show the address to the public - this is akin to showing a service area radius. Normally I'd just do citation building. But I dont want the address to show up to the public. Most listing websites need the address and don't really allow for service area radiuses. Since they are not storefronts, I do not want to display their addresses online. My question is can I see traction to just get links other than business listing citations pointed to the G+ pages? I think that since Google trusts it's own web pages above all else so pointing links to those G+ pages should work. Who's got an expert opinion?

    | Rich_Coffman
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  • Vspeed


    Hello, I am the new IT guy for a business that is moving. They have a ton of old NAP stuff for like 3 offices that they are no longer at and to be honest, the entire NAP is just a total chaotic mess. They did not keep a record of the accounts used to make the listings or anything of the sort. Now they want me to fix it all up. Does anyone have any suggestions on techniques for doing this? Is there a way to get these out of date listings closed or do I just simply make all new ones that are correct? Or is there something I am not thinking of? Thanks.

    | Vspeed
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  • DinaDiligent


    My client's brand name is a similar case to "Dolce & Gabbana" in terms of two names with an ampersand in between. There is also a high number of searches for a spelled out 'and' in between, i.e. "Dolce and Gabbana" using this example. In fact, if you perform a search for both variations, you will notice that only the first version with the "&" shows a places listing in the results. The same is happening when people search for my client. Is there a way to ensure that different variations of my clients' brand searches display with places listings in SERPs? Thanks.

    | DinaDiligent
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  • highwayfive


    Hello Mozzers The issue I have is a client with a number of office locations (six) across the south of England and they want each to rank well for each location + the qualifier solicitors. IE Brighton Solicitors. Work has been undertaken on the office location pages to include the services offered from each location, full postcodes and phone numbers. These location pages are linked to from the footer of the website so have good internal links. The site has a DA of 49 and the office location pages have a PA of 33. Google in its wisdom keeps ranking the home pages for the searches. The result is that the site ranks well in one location (London) but poorly in all the majority of others (2nd,3rd and 4th page). Were it does pick up/choose the location page the rankings are better than the homepage. The other locations are less competitive than London according to the Keyword difficulty tool. Any tips on to suggest to Google that it should rank the office location pages and not the homepage for each location?  Thanks in advance 🙂

    | highwayfive
    1
  • John-Ray


    I'm marketing a franchise gym business that has multiple locations within the same city. For the business name, I used to have it set as "Business Name" + City + Tagline. For example: "Ultimate Workout South Calgary Gym and Bootcamps". and "Ultimate Workout North Calgary Gym and Bootcamps". To comply with the google business naming rules I've updated all the listing to just business name. The problem is, now the local search results for  my gym locations are confusing. Half the address is cut off in the results, the city is not displayed at all. And sometimes results from a neighbouring city are shown. Anyone have an idea on how to implement a strategy  where people at a quick glance understand which location is best for them?

    | John-Ray
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  • mongor


    We are a medium sized cleaning service in the Baltimore area and really need help with our website and organic listings.  We used to be on googles 1st page before penguin came around and it killed our listing.  We have survived for the last few years because of our good reputation and referrals. We want to grow now but have been finding it VERY difficult to hire a SEO company/person.  There are so many scammers out there and the only companies I can find REAL reviews on are in the 10k or more range. I have been reading here and elsewhere trying to learn SEO myself a bit, but finding it a bit overwhelming. Any advice, or could anyone recommend an honest SEO firm that a mid sized company can afford. Thank you in advanced

    | mongor
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  • SEO-NS


    Looking to move several sites from my current hosting provider, and am considering moving them to cheaper, overseas hosting providers. What's the current thinking of how this will impact local SEO results?

    | SEO-NS
    1
  • RosemaryB


    A client of mine asked me if it was possible to see local listing data (ranking/traffic stats) in the Google Search Console for a URL.  I figured the Google Search Console only shows organic metrics not 3-pack/local listing performance.  However I could be mistaken. Does the Google Search Console report this?

    | RosemaryB
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  • JohnWeb12


    Hi, I have a landscaping client who is buying another company and merging the two companies together.  I trying to figure what the best way to handle this type of situation is.  Here are the specifics. Company A I've been working with him for a number of years, he has a really robust site with good content and with really good rankings.  I've done a ton of citations, he's in good shape. His company has decent name recognition. Company B My client is buying Company B. Their site is really poor, no SEO done on site and no directory listing work. The company has great name recognition in the community and gets most clients through word of mouth. My client has decided to take Company B's name because its a more well known company.  He is going to merge the companies, because he doesn't want to have 2 companies from a management standpoint.  He plans to keep both physical locations open. So here are my questions. Do I keep both sites live for a period of time and put  a message notifying people that "Company A is now Company B Name"?  OR Do I transfer all the good content from Company A's site to Company B's site and do a 301 redirect of the URL. How should I handle the data aggregators and directory listings? I'm trying to keep all the great natural traffic that Company A gets to its site, start to build traffic around company B's location while following all of Google's policies.  I could just start over and in the long-term they'd be fine, but I really love to find a strategy to avoid my client taking a big hit in organic traffic.  Thanks in advance Mozzers!

    | JohnWeb12
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  • BrianBotts.


    Hello, I had 2 google+ business pages. But the website under those pages were different. For example, www.abc.com on 1st one and then www.xyz.com on 2nd one. Both of them had the different business name and website but same address and phone number. Also, www.abc.com domain was set as redirecting to www.xyz.com. My 1st business page was ranking good but I wanted to use 2nd one only so I called up google and asked them to remove the 1st one and then they closed it. Now, the problem is that I lost the 1st one and 2nd one is not ranking for any of the keyword (I have checked all the pages in the SERP and it doesn't show up anywhere until last page). I have fixed all the citations everywhere recently but no luck in getting ranking. Can anyone suggest what steps can be done to rank 2nd one now? FYI, I am talking about local places ranking, the domain www.xyz.com is ranked well in organic ranking. Any help is appreciated! Brian

    | BrianBotts.
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  • BrianBotts.


    Hello all, First of all thanks for answering my previous queries. Now, I have one more query and I am hoping to get best possible answers from you guys. Query: I have one business which is located in one city only and I have a verified listing there (I am ranking good in that city). However, I want to rank the same business page in couple of other cities as well. What should I do considering that I cannot create a new listing for other cities because I have my office in single location only? Looking forward to answers. Brian

    | BrianBotts.
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  • coolhandluc


    Hi there Can someone tell me if the description serves a purpose in the google my business profile since:
    a) It is not displayed anywhere as far as i have seen (maps, 3 pack local results, knowledge graph, organic results)
    b) It is no longer considered as a ranking factor since it was abused so much Thanks

    | coolhandluc
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  • Ryan_V


    Hi everybody, Adding new business location. Is it better for local visibility to add it via Google My Businesses dashboard directly or via Google Map Maker first (and then claim it in My Businesses dashboard)? Thanks

    | Ryan_V
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  • LiamMcArthur


    A while back, I changed 26 of our business listings on Google so that the business name included the city, for example: "Business Name Sheffield", "Business Name York", "Business Name Doncaster". It looked consistent, it was easier to read in Google Maps when searching for Eden Mobility and even better - it may have been the cause of positive impacts in our local rankings. Using the Moz Local tool, I'm now looking at rolling out this change out throughout ALL of our business listings on the web, including Factual, Yelp etc etc... Does anybody have thoughts on this? At the back of my mind I can't help but think that I should be consistently using ONLY the business name throughout all of my online business listings. Will Google consider each of these locations as separate business entities? Here's something I found in Google's guidelines: Adding unnecessary information to your name (e.g. "Google Inc. – Mountain View Corporate Headquarters" instead of "Google") by including marketing taglines, shop codes, special characters, hours or closed/open status, phone numbers, website URLs, service/product information, location/address or directions or containment information (e.g. "Chase ATM in Duane Reade") is not permitted. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I've seen some big businesses such as ASDA doing the same thing I'm doing - but I'm undecided!

    | LiamMcArthur
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  • Sans_Terra


    We have noticed that the links to our google plus pages have become inaccessible to all of our client google plus location profiles from search result pages.  I am getting lots of questions about this from our clients and am just not sure what to say.  Does anyone have any idea what is happening here?  I do notice that some large brands have "profiles" links below their information on the right side of SERPs that includes google plus links: https://www.google.com/search?q=american+airlines and some do not: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&q=nike I can't imagine we are abandoning our business.google.com location profiles but what do we know if anything regarding the plan here is?  Whatsthehaps?

    | Sans_Terra
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  • JackMSVaughan


    Hi there everyone. I'm a Moz Local user and I have a quick question. I'm a music teacher.  Can I add multiple listings for my business for the different services I provide? For example - Saxophone lessons, Piano lessons etc...? That way I would have different listing profiles for each instrument - all pointing to a different landing page on my website? Or is this considered to be bad practice? Many thanks for your help in advance.

    | JackMSVaughan
    1
  • PrivateUser


    I am building citations for 2 brick and mortar stores for the same company that are in the same city. Since they are in the same city, I have not create individual landing pages. Just one locations page with both store addresses. We already purchased BOTW for the first location.

    | PrivateUser
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  • AL123al


    I recently read this article: https://moz.com/ugc/get-your-multilocation-business-ranking-in-multiple-cities-with-one-domain-21815 In it Brian talks about setting up webmaster tools for city locations and directories. So my client has a site: www.example.com/city1 and www.example.com/city2 How do I configure webmaster tools for these city locations. Is it possible?Is it worth it?

    | AL123al
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  • Bendall


    Good afternoon Mozzers, I hope you can help me. I have a business listing, which is listed as being "PERMANENTLY CLOSED". In fact the business is OPEN it has just changed business name. I have ownership of the listing. I have "reported an issue" to Google and asked them to list as open, however how long will this take? Is there anything I can do to fast track this and limit the business impact? Any help welcomed, Ben

    | Bendall
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  • davidmaxwell


    Hi all, I just wondered what determines the company listings that are displayed in maps. From what I can see any businesses highlighted in these lists have optimised Google Places pages and it doesn't seem to be based on general ranking as these lists seem different to the general SERPS. Any thoughts at all appreciated. Pls see attached image. Also, is there anything other than optimise your Places listing that might help ensure you are seen in these results? IUK871m.jpg

    | davidmaxwell
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  • RosemaryB


    I am trying to apply schematic markup for a client who is using javascript for their store hours and maps.  Will Google be able to comprehend the data in the Javascript file if I set up a schematic property for this?  I wanted to use this specific property http://schema.org/openingHours.  Our client is also importing reviews from a third party source.  Would it be possible to apply schematic markup to a 3rd party source? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

    | RosemaryB
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  • LittleDog


    Currently my company Big Boy Bail Bonds, Inc is ranking very well for the city it is located and, currently service type is brick and mortar. But my Company does not only service people at our location but we service the entire county of Los Angeles. And I wanted to know if you would advise me on weather I should change the service type from brick and morter to service area. and if doing that would effect me in a negative manner when it came to my ranking? Plz advice Thank you in advance.

    | LittleDog
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  • Dino64


    I have a client in the junk removal business and I can't get him to show in local for junk removal +city. Junk removal is not a Google Plus category so we have to choose Garbage Collection Service, which everyone else does as well. I've optimized the site and the local listing pretty well, much better than the competitors, but we're still not showing. It's not that we're asking to rank better, we're just trying to get on the list for the one term that makes all the difference in this business. I feel like there's a junk removal party going on and we're not invited. I've thought about a possible over-optimization penalty, but there's no G warning or message and we use fewer keywords than our competitors and have no spammy links as some of the competition does. Some companies that are no longer in business are visible. I just can't figure out what we might be doing wrong. Any ideas or suggestions I might have missed?

    | Dino64
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  • SEM_at_Lees


    Hi Guys, I have signed up for Moz Local and I am looking for UK aggregators of local business data to help build my search. Can anyone recommend a source?

    | SEM_at_Lees
    0
  • MrWoc


    Hi guys So ive been helping a local business out with their Google my business pages, they have them set up over several different accounts, which I dont think is a problem, however am sure its more helpful having them under one login, does this matter so much ? They are one company, however the titles for their business listings are all different, they have stuck some keywords into the business titles and the area, I am guessing the title for the different businesses in different citys should all be the same just the company name ? is this correct as they need to be consistent dont they ? As i am sure WH smiths for example all their business listings in different citys are just WH smiths and not with some keywords after each different branch ? I just wanted to check this up, and make sure I wasnt messing up someones listings lol !! J

    | MrWoc
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  • LMcLaughlin


    Title pretty much says it all--my company's local Google+ page has always appeared under our listed website information up until very recently. I'm also noticing the same with our competitors. Has anyone else just began to experience this? Our NAP, map, photos, and review are still displayed to the right of the results, but nothing is linked to the actual Google page itself. Am I missing something? Thanks!

    | LMcLaughlin
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  • keywordwizzard


    Hello Moz Community, I recently found out that one of my client's actual business name on paper has spacing and does not have that many capitalized words (ex. BlahBlahCity is the current NAP, however on paper it's actually Blahblah City).  After readying the guidelines for representing your business on Google I started to worry that this may be holding us back from ranking in the local 3 pack. Here's the blurb from the guideline: Fully capitalized words (with the exception of acronyms) or unnecessary spaces. Not acceptable: "SUBWAY" Acceptable: "Subway", "KFC", "IHOP", "JCPenney" Is this a big issue or can I leave it as is? Another issue that I believe is holding us back was the google my business name he has for his multiple locations.  His 2 locations have the city next to the business name. example: BlahBlahCity City#1 BlahBlahCity City#2 I know here I do need to remove the city from the business name, however when it comes to citations can google tell that it is 2 different locations and not think it's duplicate?

    | keywordwizzard
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  • PetSite


    Our team would like to use Yelps 3rd party integration on our national industry specific platform directory to bolster ratings and reviews until we can organically generate our own.  However, I have  SEO concerns over doing this.  Specifically, we're concerned over the following: Publishing massive amounts of content that has already been published on Yelp.  Worth noting that Yelp's review integration does not hide the the content behind an iFrame. Publishing a backlink providing attribution to Yelp on every one of 40,000 profiles linking back to contextual Yelp profiles. Less worried here as Yelp is reputable and is not likely to hurt ratings.  This is required by Yelp under their TOS. I think this is a pretty good growth strategy on the part of yelp, but I have worries that this could induce lasting damage on our own SEO that we're working to ramp up. My questions are: Should I have concerns about duplicative content?  Is Yelp big enough for Google to know about this 3rd party integration? If I ensure that R&Rs are only posted on pages that have a noindex, nofollow, do we protect ourselves from duplicative content. (ie.  Google bots will not review this content, so we will not have to worry about them finding and attributing duplicative content penalties.) Please let me know your thoughts.  Thanks!

    | PetSite
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  • RosemaryB


    So I was considering using Moz Local to help improve the visibility of one of my clients who is trying to improve their local SEO (they only have one business location).  When I submitted my existing client's listing there was an automated popup that read: Sorry, we're unable to update this listing right now Toll-free number detected Many of the partners to which Moz Local submits your data do not accept toll-free lines as primary phone numbers. Choosing a local phone number may also be better for rankings and increase the number of calls you get from local search customers. Is is true that having a "local phone number" can result in better rankings?  Is there any articles/studies/evidence to support this? Also are there any discounts out there for first time Moz Local users?

    | RosemaryB
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  • PeteW


    I've got a client with multiple business locations however when I type the company name into Google it's only displaying 2/3 of the branches in the local pack for that SERP. The client's picked up on this and would like the third location to appear in the local pack when people search for their company name. I have a suspicion that it's because the third location (the one that isn't displaying) has an address that's exactly the same as several other businesses that are located in offices directly above or to the side of them. My (very flakey) theory is that Google is perhaps uncertain about the exact location of this business given that there are several others with the same address but different business names, so the NAP consistency is being diluted and Google is simply leaving them out of the local pack due to the uncertainty over which business is in fact located at 2 West Street. So my question is, has anyone else had any issues of not all business locations showing in the local pack for a brand name query and if so how did you solve it?

    | PeteW
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  • MarkBolin


    I built a website, http://deeprootshgc.com. I submitted the site to google and have set up analytics. When I search for the site, deep roots home and garden center, I get their facebook page, manta and everything but the actual URL. Any thoughts?

    | MarkBolin
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  • RosemaryB


    A client of ours asked if we could place link to their local Facebook page instead of a link to the direct domain in their Google My Business listing.  Will Google allow this?

    | RosemaryB
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  • RosemaryB


    Currently we are providing local SEO recommendations for a well known pharmacy chain.  Like most major brands they enjoy multiple organic (not just 3 pack results) listings when people search for local phrases such as "Dallas pharmacy clinics'". The issue is that all these listings are coming from the same domain page.  We are seeing multiple listings both branded and non-branded search queries. Our concern is that Google will someday decide to choose one listing as the most authoritative and nix the rest of the local listings which will reduce their first page search engine saturation.  To maintain first page saturation we are considering recommending to the client that they move some of their location listings
    to a subdomain (different IP address) to avoid a Google "clean up".  Please note that our client is certainly not using any "doorway" pages but some of these are very scarce on content.  They do not have an issue with duplicate content either. By using subdomains could we help maintain our client's first page saturation?  Any links to articles would be much appreciated.

    | RosemaryB
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  • SEM_at_Lees


    Does anyone know where I can obtain a list of aggregators of local business data for the UK? I am also looking to understand the best way to find local authoritative websites that I could build backlinks with. Hope you can help. Many thanks Nick

    | SEM_at_Lees
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  • henya


    Hi A client with a local business has a 1800 number on their google plus page and most citations. How important is it to use the local number and not a 1800 one for google local? Should we change the phone number to the local number and update all listings? Or should we just continue with the 1800 number and stay consistent? I have added the local number as a second number on the google plus page.

    | henya
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  • BrianBotts.


    Hello, One of my client has business in 5 different locations so he has URL's like: "www.abc.com/city-service" for which he has listing verified in each location. I can certainly say that Google Business allow sub pages URL in citations (correct me if I am wrong). I am not sure if it is possible to use the sub URL's like: www.abc.com/city-service in different citations websites? Also, if this would be a good approach or not? Please help me. Sam

    | BrianBotts.
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  • enjoiart


    We currently rank in the local 3 pack for multiple keywords for our first location. We just opened a second location which is currently hanging at around #20 in the local results.  We have decided to close the first highly ranking location seasonally. We do not want to send customers to that closed location. However we also do not want to list the address with google as "permanently closed" in fear of losing all ranking power of that listing. Is it possible to transfer ranking power from location to the other or merge 2 different locations? Has anyone had any experience with this, tips, advice?? Thanks in advance! Chris

    | enjoiart
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  • maxcarnage


    I have several clients looking for local submission services similar to Yext (since they are already subsribers). Can anyone suggest a service similar to Yext for an SBO. Likewise, do any of you know any local citation services that are similar to Yext, but specifically for the hotel/hospitality industry? I was considering localeze.com, but I'm skeptical because I believe the citations I will be getting there will be similar to the ones I'm getting on Yext. Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    | maxcarnage
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  • Bendall


    Good morning Mozzers from London, England, I have been having some issues around local SERPs and getting our businesses to rank. The issue I have is we run GYMS, however within our gyms certain locations we run additional businesses like CHILDREN'S NURSERIES or PHYSIOTHERAPY CLINICS etc. Now these are run affectively as different businesses, and you don't need to be a gym member to use these services. However Google only lets you have 1 primary category per business address. And all of our locations are rightly registered as GYMS. So I can't then produce a secondary business listing at the same address.....can I? Has anyone else experienced this problem, or know of a solution? Kindest regards Ben

    | Bendall
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  • SEO-Bas


    A client implemented dynamic number insertion using PHP to display a different number, based on the traffic source (organic, paid, direct and so on). This effects every displayed phone number on the website which leads to inconsistencies across the web, Gmybusiness and listings. My best best would be to use JavaScript for the number insertion instead, add a <noscript>using the "real" number and add JSON code with the correct NAP details.</p> <p>Is this correct or is there another way, a better way?</p> <p>Thanks in advance!</p></noscript>

    | SEO-Bas
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  • Ideas-Money-Art


    Hi Mozzers, I made a search for "ways to unclog toilet" and found this at the top of the search result page: http://cl.ly/image/2e0N033D0B1j It seems that google is adding a new kind of knowledge graph. What it is this and how can I get my clients doing the same? Is it connected to Google Business? Thanks for letting me know!

    | Ideas-Money-Art
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  • Brumas


    I'm new on SEO and recently redid this my website. This website is a local business that just sell around my city, so I started linking the website on listing sites. I found one directory that didn't allow me to add a non-www, so I change on every listing site or directory to www, It seems you can get your google ranking harmed if there is variations to access your website.I know that everything will arrive on the same page no matter I have a non-www or www, but the Website is Hosted on Godaddy and it seems that they don't use the www version even if you want. So my domain is non-www. On the other hand I just have been notified that google webmaster tools couldn't verify my account and I did it again and is verified now. Cheking again on WMT, it doesn't show the previous links that were under "Links to Your Site" it just show "no data available". Here in MOZ it show different results between non-www and www Why is this happening? What should I do? And in which way my google ranking can be affected by this?

    | Brumas
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  • ParadigmPCB


    There is a business listing I wish to correct / update on 411dir.biz There is no way to contact the website online, and in cases like this, I try to do a whois lookup, and reach out via the email / phone number there. This site seems impossible to connect with, has anybody else come up against situations like this in the past, if so what do you tell your client / what other approaches do people have? Thanks!

    | ParadigmPCB
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  • Derrald


    I am employing some schema.org markup for a dental website, and I am wondering what best practice for using markup is. The NAP is on the footer and on some pages on the sidebar. I was wondering... Should I use schema for the NAP on both the footer and the sidebar or is markup on just one enough? Are there any negative consequences to having the same info marked up twice on the same page? Should I use the itemtype "dentist" or "localbusiness"? Is there an added benefit to either depending how you look at it? My thoughts were that "dentist" is more specific, so that would also imply that it is also a local business... If I use the itemtype "dentist" on the footer and "localbusiness" on the sidebar would that violate best practices or would you get the benefits of both? Would love to hear all of your thoughts! Thanks!!!

    | Derrald
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  • masonrj


    So now we have the new 3-pack local results, which obviously cut the listings Google+ link from the results. What I find strange is that is now even when searching the business name alone, there is no sign of the associated Google+ page in the results.  I still get other local third party listings like Facebook, Yellowpages, and Yelp – but no link anywhere for the Google+ page. I noticed this today when I wanted to verify something on a client’s page. There was nothing I could do search wise to bring up this business Google+ page.  I finally got it by clicking the link through Moz local. After exploring this with some other clients, when I do get a Google+ page in the search results some have produced a 500 error when clicked on. If Google wasn’t killing off Google+, why would they completely omit the pages from their own search results? Another extremely strange thing, the majority of my clients are independent local businesses inside a large national company.  Their Google+ listings have always been managed corporately using a bulk listing feed. We could never gain access to these pages and would always manage our listings to match that of the corp. controlled page.  Well the last week of July they announced they were giving us the option to take control of the page.  This happened with two different companies, MAJOR national competitors in the same industry, within a couple days of each other. They now treat it just like another version of social media, instead of a major factor within search.  I find it hard to believe that something isn’t going on…

    | masonrj
    0
  • MiriamEllis


    Hey There, all my fellow Local SEOs! Yesterday morning, I was searching for a car wash and was really puzzled to see my search return snack pack-style results, given that I wasn't looking for a restaurant, hotel or an entertainment venue. Sure enough, what I had run into was the rollout of Google's latest local SERPs, which for the sake of clarity, let's call the Local Stack. This is happening in multiple countries and across thousands of keywords and your local clients (or your local business) are likely to be affected by it, so I thought I'd post a heads-up here. Good Reading: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/08/06/7-pack-becoming-3-pack-with-mobile-like-snak-pack-rollout/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/08/07/thoughts-about-the-new-local-stack-display/comment-page-1/#comment-859275 http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/35481-goodbye-7-packs-only-3-packs-no-phone-address-all-local-results.html http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/35515-new-local-3-stack-local-pro-opinions-roundup-change-rocked-our-world.html That last one has a bunch more great links in it. In June, I wrote a post here on Moz itemizing my concerns about the Snack Pack and its impacts on the hospitality/entertainment industries. Now, these same concerns are coming to me local-search-wide, with the rollout of the Local Stack. My early days key points from looking at the new Local Stack: No phone numbers without clicking through to Local Finder, which I consider to be really poor usability, given the invention of the cell phone and the way we use it call businesses. No links to the Google+ Local page, meaning that consultants like ourselves may have a really hard time explaining the value of creating a Google listing when so few SERPs will now actually lead to that listing. 3 chances to rank when your city has dozens or even hundreds or businesses in a single industry seems next-to-impossible. It's not a good reflection of the diversity of the business scene in the real world. There aren't 3 Italian restaurants in San Francisco or 3 lawyers in Boston. There are scores of them. Google's Local Stack is a poor reflection of the real world, in my view, and makes every city look like a one horse town. On the other hand, the baldness of the Local Stack is making the 'more' link at the bottom of it really jump out at me, and if you click through, up to 20 businesses will show with the Local Finder. So, I'm a bit torn on this. Are the 4 businesses that just fell out of prominence with the removal of the 7 pack worse off or are 13 businesses now jumping for joy because they are in a sort of pack today that they weren't in 2 days ago? I guess this depends on how willing consumers are to click that 'more' link. Given the meagerness of the Local Stack, organic is likely a great deal more important now for every local business, but I'm concerned by SERPs I'm looking at which are mainly taken up by directories rather than any actual local business websites. So, those are some first thoughts from me and I would totally love to hear yours on this thread as you are trying to assess how you see this impacting your clients or your business. It's definitely a new day in Local!

    | MiriamEllis
    4
  • chris.oursbourn


    I am trying to write a business description for building citations. What is the ideal length or word count for this? I am using Yext to help get them listed, did a lot of searching for an answer and was unable to come up with a definite answer. Any help would be great! The business I am working on for this is James River Church, they have 2 locations. So I am trying to write a unique description for both locations.

    | chris.oursbourn
    0
  • websitemusclemarketing


    So I just saw this afternoon that google has changed how the local pack displays listings, only 3 listings now show. Also Google continues to distance itself from Google+. Now it seems getting in the top 3 of the local pack is going to be even more competitive. What should the strategy be now for competing in the local pack? Has it changed? Or just stick to tried and true local optimizations?

    | websitemusclemarketing
    0
  • bricktech


    So I've just seen that Moz have rolled out their new Moz Local to help businesses in the USA... Has anyone any idea if this will be available in the UK, if so do we know when? Also, would love to know some feedback on anyone who has already started using this new feature

    | bricktech
    0
  • wicko


    I have a verified local Google+ Page all set up for my local business and linked to my website.. it shows up nicely in local results for my city. Being ambitious I am expanding my presence into another city and would like my website to start showing up in local search for that area as well. What is the protocol for best results ? Start a new Google+ page or somehow add the branch onto the existing page (although there does not seem to be anywhere for this as the page is a local business and seems to lock it in with only a single address)..

    | wicko
    1

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