Places ranking for a non-locational phrase?
-
http://www.google.co.uk/search?ie=UTF-8&q=coach+hire&pws=0&gl=GB
The link above takes you to a SERP for a general phrase with no hint of locations involved (Coach Hire).
However oddly enough there is a single google places listing that has pooped up at #4.
Liverpool Minibus Coach hire
<cite>www.localcoachhireuk.co.uk/</cite>
Now if this was "Coach Hire London" I would expect places, and indeed there is a list of places.
But how do you get a places listing ranking for a phrase without a place name?
Also of interest is the fact that this website doesn't even exist! It is a 301 redirect to another site.
Google seems to be picking up the 301 since it shows the redirected site in the page snapshot and has no pages indexed for this domain.
So an un-indexed site with a 301 redirect is #4 for the top phrase in this industry. I have no doubt that this will only be a temporary thing but it would be interesting to know how it was possible.
-
The recently leaked google doc seems to have the answer.
#9 here explains it (partly) - still frustrating though that black hat redirects are working!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/16-insights-into-googles-rating-guidelines
-
The thing is that this site isn't even indexed since it doesn't have a single page - only a 301 redirect.
They only SERPS they appear in are a few places spots, 2 of which I have found that the search phrase doesn't have any locational elements in.
I had been of the understanding that places results only appeared when you have a place in your search phrase but this seems to dispel that theory.
-
I assume the rank well for the term and in general, have all the googles places filled out correctly. but i am only guessing, i have wondered myself and others simular. I dont think it temporary either.
I would point out report a problem to google. Dont let others have an unfair advantage.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Site structure for location + services pages
We are in the process of restructuring our site and are trying to figure out Google's preference for location pages and services. Let's say we are an auto repair company with lots of locations and each one of them offer some unique services, while other services are offered by all or most other locations. Should we have a global page for each service live with a link to the location page for each shop that offers that service? OR Should we built a unique page about each service for every location as a subfolder of each location (essentially creating a LOT of sub pages because each location has 15-20 services. Which will rank better?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MJTrevens1 -
Inverse variation in Rankings between countries
Hi, Our ranking between India and USA is varying inversely like....when we improve in India...drops in USA and vice-versa. And the possible correlation I have from my end is: We have reclaimed some links and removed same. It happens at both redirects and removal of those redirects. When we reclaimed some links, we improved in India and dropped in US. And when we removed these redirects, vice-versa. Any idea on this? Please share. Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Broken images & Rankings
Hi I have seen a big drop in a keyword going from position 3 to out of the top 100. The only thing I can see that went wrong, was an issue with broken images - could this be the reason for the drop? Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Drop in rankings
Our keyword rankings have dropped greatly since July'12. Our site used to be in the top 8 rankings for the most competitive keywords on our industry and now rank 30+. Being new to this industry any help would be greatly appreciated. www.fragileremovals.com.au
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
Is My site seeing a Google Dance ? - Rankings all over the place
My eCommerce website is seeing some rankings flucuate daily from say rank 20 to rank 130 whilst some other keywords ago up and down by as much as 40 places. I have been putting up alot of new unique content and can see in GWT that google has been crawling my site more but given that I was affected by the google panda updates which saw a 40% drop in traffic I'm only just to recover some of it., i have also been trying to get rid of any poor links and our linking building is only concentrating on high quality posts and links. I am wondering if this is the post panda update - "google dance" or is google having issues trying to work where to rank my site and possibly punish me? thanks Sarah.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SarahCollins0 -
Can a Hosting provider that also hosts adult content sites negatively affect our SEO rankings on a non-adult site hosted on same platform?
We're considering moving a site to a host that also offers hosting for adult websites. Can this have a negative affect on SEO, if our hosting company is in any way associated with adult websites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grapevinemktg0 -
Dropping dramatically in keyword rankings
One of my clients has always ranked well for this keyword (janitorial services, nh). Then within a week, they dropped out of the top fifty in Google and now in other major search engines as well. My first thought of why the drop in rankings is due to duplicate listings within online directories. The previous marketing person on staff was listing the company more than once in these directories, and it wasn't discovered until later in the link building process. Sometimes the company was listed with "janitorial services" as part of the company name, and then listed again with "carpet cleaning" as part of the company name... sometimes with duplicate address, or using the po box instead - as if two companies. The odd thing in all this is that while they dropped in ranking for this keyword, they still come in usually 1st in Google Places for this keyword with 12 excellent reviews. And yet when I check their Google Places account, it says that it needs to be reverified, again, it doesn't meet the terms. (company is a family owned business, for over 30 years, they have a lot of potential). So all this duplication needs to be fixed, but how serious are duplicate listings on places like Manta, YellowPages, SuperPages, also Yahoo Business Local and Bing Business Directory? And now that "forensics" seems to be my task, any suggestions on how to start? Any processes I should go through with Google WebMaster? _Cindy And, too, if I could add, the site ranks very poorly for this keyword and while I have provided recommendations, and they understand the onsite issue, they have yet to go forward with implementation, making this a little more difficult issue.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CeCeBar0 -
Google Places in the UK, No Postcard
I've been trying to register a business on Google Places now for a few months. As part of the verification process, Google send a postcard to your business address so that you can enter the pin online and verify your address. They also say that it takes up to 3 weeks, however this is now the 3rd time I've requested a pin and none have turned up so far. The latest one was requested well over 3 weeks ago. Has anyone else had problems getting a local results postcard? It's driving me nuts!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterAlexLeigh0