Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Do citations count as backlinks?
-
Hello,
So I may have a simple question- do citations such as yp and manta for an example count as backlinks?
So if they do, would this be a natural link so good for seo? or a citation where it may be a backlink, but not very helpful for seo backlink profile?
Thank you to all
-
Hi Berner,
Good question and some thoughtful answers here. I'll chime in with my 2 pesos.
A citation is defined as a web-based reference to a local business' complete or partial NAP (name, address, phone). A citation does not have to include a link the company website. For example, a blogger could mention your restaurant's name and address, leave out the phone number and not link to the restaurant's website and that would still count as a citation, meaning that the business owner must be certain that the blogger has accurately published the restaurant's name and address.
On more standardized platforms, like local business directories, nearly all allow you to include a link to your website. This does count as a link, but whether it is nofollowed or not is up to the individual directory. So, this does bear on how much 'juice' a given link is passing your way.
Regardless, if your business is a local one, citations are a core part of the work you will be doing to promote your business on the Internet. If your business model isn't truly local, then citations aren't really meant for you.
I think you'll really enjoy reading the great section in the new Moz Local Learning Center that covers the ins and outs of citations. Tons of great resources here for you: http://moz.com/learn/local/listings
Hope this will help, and kudos to all on the good responses on this thread!
-
I am pretty much thirding what everyone else says, but with a little grey hat twist.
They help on both a local and a (not to the same extent) national level. One thing that helps them even more is having reviews attached to them. I owned a small business, it was a cabinet company. We went from doing about 80k a year to several million a year flatly because of SEO. The strategy I used in the beginning still works for small businesses. I created accounts at all of the local places, yp, yelp, angieslist, google, and so on. Then I sent the links around to friends, family, customers, ect, and asked them to post a review. Soon after doing that (because no one hardly reviews cabinet companies) we had the most reviews, so we were at the top of the lists. As far as I know this still works today and I would nail it if I was in your position. Because this is a grey area, I would also like to mention not to work with people that will "get" you reviews. They are buying them, if you get caught it might undo everything that you have worked for.
-
The thumb rule here is that any website that is linking back to your website regardless of it as a citation website or a blog or anything else will be call as backlink and will be consider as part of your link profile.
Will this help with SEO? Here if you are talking about Local SEO, the answer is YES! If you have a business listed in different citation website with consistent NAPs, then yes you will get Local SEO benefit for it but will this help improve your rankings in search engine from the targeted key phrases… may be a little but don’t expect this as your huge success.
Websites like YP.com, Yelp and few others… for them you have to think more than just SEO, your proper listing will more valuable then rankings because these can give you real leads then just traffic!
Hope this helps!
-
Just a little "FYI" any link to your site is a "back link". But to answer your question, these definitely count and are very valuable in local seo. To rank in local search in Google Maps, the number of these citations, the authority of the citation sources, and the consistency of your NAP ( Name, Address and Phone Number) is a major factor. Moz just launched Moz local which helps populate many of these sources. I'm on my phone or I would link to a few resources. Google "top 20 local SEO ranking factors moz" and you'll see a post by Miriam Ellis which is definitely useful.
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
-
Moz crawling doesn't show all of my Backlinks
I'm trying to make an SEO backlinks and anchors report on my website When using the Link Explorer, I see no backlinks to show while I have create much more backlinks on this website. How to fix the issue? How can I check and correct report of my backlinks? Website is www.poolcleanerspro.com I also need some how to track a keywords?
Link Building | | fassi345621 -
Does iframe itself count as a backlink?
Our situation is similar to YouTube. We have an original content on every subpage that is genuinely useful when embedded as a widget on 3r party websites. That is why we offer an embeddable widget that shows slightly simplified version of the content - exactly like a YouTube video embedded on your blog. The embed code is simply an iframe sourcing from our subpage: <iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage"></p> </blockquote> <p>1/ Does the iframe itself pass any link value at all to the subpage?</p> <p>2/ If yes, what would be the equivalent of anchor text in iframe?</p> <p>3/ If not, will any link in the subpage pass link value from the 3rd party website to my domain/subpage?</p> <p>4/ If not, will I be punished/rewarded if I ask users to put a visible, unobfuscated link to the subpage below the iframe?</p> <blockquote style="background: #f7f7f7; padding-top: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-bottom: 5px; white-space: nowrap; overflow-y: auto; font-family: monospace;"> <p><iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage" /><a href="wikibudgets.org/subpage">rich anchor text</a></p> </blockquote></iframe>
Link Building | | wikiBudgets0 -
Is there a difference between .com backlinks and .co.uk?
(We are a UK based business) I am currently looking for sites for guest posting opportunities and I am not sure whether I should prioritize .co.uk sites or go for .com sites. Does it matter? Is more weight given to .co.uk sites if you are based in the UK?
Link Building | | JamesG0750 -
Do backlinks which contain parameters pass value
For some of our partners, we use our own tracking string in the url i.e. www.mysite.com/landingpage.html?partner=123456 . This has caused backlinks to be created to our site containing the partner string. I was wondering if these links would pass value to www.mysite.com/landingpage.html and the tracking parameters would be ignored or would Google treat www.mysite.com/landingpage.html?partner=123456 as its own page. If it did treat it as a seperate page, could you reclaim some of it using the canoncial tag?
Link Building | | L_F0 -
Free Classified Backlinks & Google
Is there a risk that Google will de-index your site or lower your ranking if you have too many backlinks from free classifed sites? I would just use 1 free ad per classified website. Thanks.
Link Building | | finalfrontier0 -
Does the complete url count as backlink?
Hi there, does the http://mysite.com count as a backlink if posted on a site? I post a press releae and the site only allows me to put urls like this. they get something or must be in anchor the url? Thanks
Link Building | | nyanainc0 -
Paul and Angela Style Backlinks
Do Forum Profile Links provided by Paul and Angela hold any SEO merit ? Will it help in improving SER?
Link Building | | krishrun0