Local SEO: Links with the citations so should I slow down?
-
Hello,
There seems to be some nofollow and dofollow links building as I add structured citations.
Is this a reason to slow down the building citation process if you want the links to count? Do they help organic SEO?
-
Awesome! Very useful information from Mr. Shaw.
-
Hey Again Bob,
Happily, I was able to catch Darren almost immediately. I have his permission to quote his replies on this topic. Very fascinating stuff here, I'm sure everyone will agree!
"Citation velocity isn't an issue. If I build 100 citations today, they will "go live" on the various sites at all different rates. 10 might get posted same day, some within a week, others within a few weeks, and others with months (or even years). So, citation throttling is naturally built in to the citation building process. I don't believe Google is measuring citation velocity as a positive or negative factor, but, the links can hurt you if you get too many at once.I have seen a case where one citation submission on one site spread to listings on THOUSANDS of other domains within the same business listings network. Rankings tanked.
"It's important to make sure you're submitting to quality sources. See: http://www.whitespark.ca/blog/post/12-how-to-identify-quality-citation-sources
"I think it's only a concern if you're not careful with the quality of the sources you're submitting to. You can only cause damage if you hit a site like the one I identified (it's a very nasty negative SEO source that I don't want to reveal). Building citations at 20, 30, 50, even 100 per day is no problem in my opinion because of the natural spread of when these listings go live."
Great feedback from Darren, no? I learned something today! I always learn something new whenever I talk to Darren and I appreciate the time he took to share his take on this with me. If anyone knows citations inside and out, it's Mr. Shaw!
-
Hey Bob,
I think you raise an interesting point, given that many citations do contain links and velocity of linkbuilding does play a part in Organic SEO. No one is citing this as problematic, in my experience, in the Local SEO sphere, but this doesn't mean there is no chance it has any effect. As you are using Darren's tool, why don't I give Darren a shout-out to get his expert opinion on this topic? I'll return with an update if Darren will be so good as to reply.
-
Bob,
Thanks for the feedback! I hope you find great success in local SEO! One side note is that services like Yext will submit 40+ instantaneously with no harmful effects. That's just an interesting data point since if you're doing them by hand there's no way you could ever do that In the same amount of time!
Yes, building citations is not the most exciting task in the world. However a lot of times you will see the added benefit of gaining new customers through the other sites where your business is listed. Good luck and keep the data consistent.
-
Thanks Casey,
I think it's time to let the citations play out for a while. I'm glad you think it's OK so far. I am using Roboform and your post.
I feel like I'm doing directory submission. I bet the time will come when the algorithm changes to something not so easy to do.
-
I'm just using Whitespark
It's bobweikel.com
It's the first SEO besides content I've done for the site.
I'll spend some time auditing the competition. That will be simple in my case.
Let me know what a good round number of Whitespark-found citations would be for a new non-SEOed site. I can work on nofollow blog commenting and guest posting for now or I'll see what my analysis turns up.
-
The new NAP is actually NAP+W (W meaning website). That's what they're teaching at local U Advanced and I agree. Basically wherever you have a citation you should try to get a link. Everywhere you have a link you can also try to get a citation.
Many citation sources will give you a no follow link but having a mixture of follow and no follow links is natural and good. When you add these citations it may take a while for them to get indexed too. Many of these directories are huge and put your listing deep within them. Long story short... If you are building citations manually (even using the Roboform method in my Moz Post to speed it up) you should have nothing to worry about.
You will be surprised to see how long some citations take to get indexed and then how long they will take to help you. Don't forget to submit your listing to the major data aggregates like Axciom, Localeze, Infogroup etc.
-
I think that's a little too much. Slow down. Revisit your link profile. Do a complete audit for yourself and the competition. See what you really need. Revisit your On-page and then fill the gaps. That's a little too many unless you are talking about an authority site/brand with considerable customer base, traffic, audience to justify this as natural. Are these all same kinds of links/citations ? Blogs/Blog comments/articles/press releases/guest posts etc etc ?
-
Thanks Nakul,
Maybe 10-20 citations a day for one site.
-
Thanks Chris,
So this isn't link building as well, the links won't help organic SEO and might not even be discovered if I understand you correctly
-
As long as you are not over doing any one specific kind of link building, I won't worry. A good mix is natural. Don't bother too much if there are certain citations, follow, nofollow. It's the normal nature of the web.
As Chris said, How many citations are you adding in what period of time?
-
My take on citations for local search is that they're dealt with by an algorithm other than the organic algorithm, one which looks to verify the correctness of the NAP and qualify the sites upon which the citations are found and that the sites where the citations are found are disregarded by the organic algorithm. So, if citations occur on a bunch of local database sites, like yp.com, for example, and they also come with links, the fact that it's a site dealt with by the Local algorithm means that velocity of links add isn't an issue.
I could be wrong though. I've been wrong before. : (
How many citations are you adding in what period of time?
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
-
Google Local Page Not Showing in Search Results
Hi! I am having an issue with our business's Google+/Local/Places/whatever-the-heck-you-call-it-these-days page not showing up in search results. I work for a company called Nexxtep Technology Services. We are located in Valdosta, GA. We have a Google+ page that's filled out nicely and I would love it if it would show up next to the search results when you search "nexxtep technology services" or "nexxtep valdosta" in Google. For some reason, it does not. I have a feeling what might be a source of the issue...we have developed and hosted websites for clients, and we used to put a link to our site in the footer. Now, I know that's not a good thing to do. We don't do that anymore, and I have since removed those links from existing sites. I removed them almost 6 weeks ago now. Should I give Google a little more time to crawl these sites again? Any guidance would be tremendously appreciated. Thank you for your help!
Image & Video Optimization | | nexxtep0 -
Google Local pulling incorrect business name
A client mistakenly put her business name in one of the directories with "In" after the name for" incorporated". She wants to remove the "In" because it just looks weird, but we cannot figure out how, its showing up in google local too now. She did update her infousa listing but that didn't help.
Image & Video Optimization | | handsun0 -
Local Citation Sites
After searching through many local citation site I find that most only apply to the US. Are there any really good ones in Canada?
Image & Video Optimization | | casper4340 -
Local Listings for a Virtual Product
My company sells very geographically specific products online. We have local offices in cities connected to the product and they are labeled with terms such as "florida widget". Could I use local SEO and add my website link to Google maps, etc... with the local address or is that not allowed since the products are not sold in the physical local office but rather online?
Image & Video Optimization | | theLotter0 -
How to build links with really good S3 hosted video using JW Player
I have a number of really good quality videos that are embedded on my own site. Many are "how to" or "what to do if" type video guides with questions answered by experts. They were professionally shot. So that I could reap the full SEO benefit from the videos, I have them hosted via Amazon S3 and am using an embedded JW Player. We have a video sitemap and, as a result, most of the videos have already been indexed by Google and are showing up in Google video search as residing on our webpage. Now the real problem is how to get some link benefit from them. They should be viable and valuable link bait. My initial thought was to do a PR Web type press release with the video embedded in it. The problem with that is that you are limited to Youtube and Vimeo embedded video which defeats that purpose entirely. PR Newswire has different issues but the end result is the same, I can't embed those videos with them either. As far as I can tell, all I could do with a press release would be to link to the videos. Moreover, I don't even know that press releases would be that valuable in the post penguin world but the hope was that people would share the videos naturally. So, I put it to the experts. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get some link benefit from these videos? Any ideas at all? I am stumped. Any advice would be appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | LawSEOSeeker0 -
Yahoo! local UK
Apologies if this is a dumb question, i'm struggling to find an answer. I was wondering how to list a business on Yahoo! local UK? Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.
Image & Video Optimization | | CWseo0 -
Which Local Listing Should I Delete
I have a client that has two local listings in google for one suburb. My client only has one office in this area. In the below two local listings no information has been completed except for information scraped from the yellow pages by google Option A
Image & Video Optimization | | VivaArturo
One listing has a review that is 8 months old and shows in the blended local search results position A. However the address details are incorrect as info is from an old yellow pages ad. To verify this address it can only be completed by postcard as does not provide a phone number option. Option B
This listing has the correct address as per the yellow pages listing and has been verified and has no reviews. in position I All other competitor local listings are not placed except for one Should I edit Option A's address to update to the current address and delete Option B from the local listings. Verification can be completed by mail only Or should I delete Option A with the incorrect address with one review and keep Option B as has just been verified and can start woking on this listing immediately. I think I should use Option B, as in the 2 weeks I would wait to be verified I could gain more ground with the current listing. What are your thoughts?0 -
Local listing | Virtual office
Hi Miriam (and all Local SEO mozers), I read a couple of your answers where you advice people in different situations not to consider a virtual office when creating their Google Places listing and I would like to know if you would apply the same advice in my case. This is the scenario: I have a client who's in the limousine service in Orlando, he just bought the URL and registered the business with the City using a "virtual office" in Orlando. This virtual office provides him a physical address, local area phone number, 411 listing, a listing for the businesses in that building and an office to have his meetings. This is the part where it gets confusing when I read your answers and I will give you an example. You said here:
Image & Video Optimization | | echo1
_The requirements in order to qualify for a Google Place Page are that you have: __1. A legal business name__2. A local area code phone number__3. A physical street address (not a P.O. box or virtual office) to which customers either come to do business with you or from which your employees depart in order to serve customers at their locations (think chimney sweep, landscaper, etc.)_Number 3 says "A physical street address (not a P.O. box or virtual office) to which customers either come to do business with you".
My client is going to rent one of those virtual offices, which does have a physical address, on as-needed basis. This office actually does exist. Why would Google have anything against it?
One of the reasons why he chose that location is because he is running the business from home and he does not want the clients to see it.
Another reason is the image he wants to create for his company by having a different address where he can hold meetings and such. The phone number will be either a local land-line or a local cell phone number, in any case, it will be a _local area code phone number. _
So this is where we stand: he dispatches the cars from home (he does not have a garage, the cars stay with the drivers 24 hours) but he meets his clients and business partners at the other address. There is nothing fake about it, he does have a legal business name, a local area code number and a real place where customers come to do business with. Which address should I use for his Google Places listing?0