Question Regarding Multiple Google Places Pages
-
Hello,
One of my clients has about 20 different google places pages at locations that are not real. The previous SEO company thought that would help with local search. My problem is that several great reviews have been written on each page by real customers. I want to close the places pages for locations that don't exist, but I don't want to lose the reviews. Is anyone aware of a solution for this? I have searched Google's forums and have not found anything.
-
Hi Bjolley,
Thanks for coming to the forum to ask your question! I'm glad to see Members contributing their thoughts, but think a point needs to be clarified here.
This is not a case of claiming the 'best' profile and making it your client's authoritative Place Page - it is a case of claiming the CORRECT profile - the one for the business' legitimate location.
At this point, if this were my client, I would not be worrying about losing a few reviews on his phony Place Pages. I'd be sweating whether his account would be penalized before I could report the bogus listings through Google's report a problem link.
Now, that being said, I have seen cases where Google has accidentally displayed the reviews for one geographic location on another location's Place Page, but so far as I know, there is no way to save the reviews. Tell the client they are lucky you are trying to clean up the mess and that going forward, they will need to work on building up new reviews over time to replace what has been lost.
As a final thought, before you report the incorrect Place Pages, why not copy the good reviews and use them as testimonials on the client's website? You might even try doing this with hReview markup code to see if Google will eventually pick them back up again and display them on the authoritative Place Page. But first things first...tell the client you've got to get that record cleaned up as best you can, and fast!
Good luck to you!
Miriam
-
I don't think it would be a good idea to claim all of these profiles. Google will most likely just suspend your account. Claim only the best one with the most/best reviews on it. On all of the other duplicate profiles use the "report a problem" link and choose the "place has another listing" option. In the comments, give Google the direct URL to the claimed profile.
I am unsure how they will handle reviews for this, but at the very least you'll have a starting point with the best profile these previous "SEOs" did.
-
WOW an SEO firm that thought Quantity over Quality is important, NO!!!!!!
I am unaware of any solution for this, as I had a similar issue due to the company i work for has changed names a few times for Branding, so before i got here there were 3 -4 Place pages for each one of our 15 locations. It sucked to say the least especially since Google does not allow the use of extensions for authentication.
I would like to hear if anyone has any ideas, although I do not think it is possible. Especially since in most cases the comments are from 3rd party sources.
Hope you find an answer though!
w00t!
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
-
Does Google Image Search also punish duplicated content?
Does duplicated content have an impact on your Google Image ranking?
Image & Video Optimization | | fduo0 -
Google+ Local City Centroid Bias
It's well-known that Google has a bias towards businesses located closest to the center of the city being searched in. How can you tell where exactly Google considers to be the center of the city? I think that the way is to just search the city name on Google Maps and the marker will appear at where they consider the center of the city to be but just wanted to double check on that first.
Image & Video Optimization | | ChaseCameron0 -
Updating address in Google Places
My client has moved address to a location in the same city. Will updating his Google Places page lead to a drop in rankings? If so, what is the best way to resolve it?
Image & Video Optimization | | neooptic0 -
Google Places categories
I work with a Local SEO company for troubleshooting our Google Places and optimization. They suggested that in order for us to rank for the keywords we provided them with they need to change the categories. Now, those categories do not exist in Google Places and I read on Seomoz and Google help forum that we should choose from the ones in the list provided by Google. I also know that Categories should not contain location-based information. Should I let them do that?
Image & Video Optimization | | echo10 -
Google Local Listings dropped in all major keywords
One of our websites had dropped dramatically in all of his major keywords over the past several days. He was ranked in the maps section in google (the old pages not the google plus pages) in the top 3 in his most important keywords and all of a sudden they dropped off the first page completely - not just down one or 2 places. Not sure what happened and how to fix it.. help please!!!
Image & Video Optimization | | levylevy0 -
Videos impact on SEOmoz On Page Analysis
For several years we've heard that Google rewards pages that include videos with significantly higher page ranks, however I do not see video incorporated into the On Page Analysis. One of our competitors ranks 1st-3rd on a several keywords while the On Page Analysis tool grades them as an F for the same keywords. This competitor uses video more than any of the others, and has far more YouTube subscribers. I suspect video plays a role in their excellent SERP. Is there a video evaluation tool within SEOmoz? If not, is one coming, or is there a reason why it would not be appropriate? Does anyone have suggestions for incorporating the use of videos in SEO evaluations and recommendations? Thank you, Michael
Image & Video Optimization | | XLAB0 -
Are multiple embeds of the same video considered content duplication?
We are considering using Wistia to host our “new” video content on our website. Currently we use YouTube and find many people watch our technical videos (Eg. Fitting videos have10k + views, which is very high for our niche industry) We currently have “the same” YouTube videos embedded on several different blog posts on our website, as the video is still relevant to what the post talks about Question: Since Wistia updates our video Robot.Txt file, would multiple embeds of the “same video” be seen as content duplication on google & “be harmful” as a result? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Ray_UK0 -
Google Places Account Suspended
Hi- I was recently forced to migrate my Google account. After going through the process my Google Places profiles associated with this email was suspended. I've read the quality guidelines and I'm pretty certain that my account was suspended because: --
Image & Video Optimization | | lhc67
Account Email Address: Use a shared business email account, if multiple users will be updating your business listing. If possible, use an email account under your business domain. For example, if your business website is www.google.com, a matching email address would be you@google.com. There seems to be no way to change the email address associated with a Places account. I've pretty much resolved to obtaining emails at the business domain and setting the profiles up again from scratch. Before I do this does anyone have any other ideas? I've posted the question at Google webmaster forums and have only found other similar unanswered questions. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you! LHC0
