Can I use a fake email address for Moz Local submission? This is for a medical practice, that has been advised not to publish an email address due to HIPAA concerns.
-
I work with medical practices, who due to HIPAA do not want to publish an email address in listings.
Would it cause a problem if I just submitted a non-working address (like noreply@client.com) that is not set up at all, so any email sent there would just bounce?
Obviously, one option is to use a HIPAA compliant email account, but there are other considerations (timeliness of responses related to clinical issues, for example) that make it less than ideal for a many medical practices to publish a public email address of any sort.
I'm interested in any options or solutions that could allow me to use Moz Local (which requires an email address) for businesses with HIPAA concerns.
Ira
-
Thanks. I submitted a feature request:
https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/49105990-Make-email-address-an-optional-field-for-Moz-Local
-
What if someone emails this phony address and does not get a prompt reply? Is that a problem?
-
Hi Ira,
I've chatted with the team and learned that we will not reject a listing with a fake address, but I do share the above concerns about a poor user experience, because that address will be published on your listings. I think the idea of setting up an autoresponder is as good as any, here, so you'd likely want to implement this.
I'd also like to suggest that you make a feature request here https://seomoz.zendesk.com/forums/293194-Moz-Feature-Requests regarding the possibility of Moz Local not making the email a required feature of the .CSV. I think you've raised an important point about medical practices!
Hope this helps!
-
Thanks for your help. While we are on the topic, any idea why it is required? I'd love it if there was a "Moz Local Light" that submitted to only the sites that do not require an email. That would be helpful for medical practices, as well as for any other business that prefers not to use (or at least publish) an email address.
-
Hi Ira,
While I know that an email address is a required field of our .CSV template you'll be filling out, I'm not actually sure if there would be negative outcomes of using a non-working address in that field, in terms of updating your listings on our partners' platforms or otherwise. Let me bring this up with the rest of the Local team to get a consensus of opinion. I'll come back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for asking a smart question!
-
I agree, they should. But you might be surprised at the number of medical practices that simply do not have a knowledgeable security advisor.
-
Agreed, this is precisely the option I recommend... at the same time, I'm trying to be creative about alternatives. In some cases, the issue is NOT keeping the email secure, as required by HIPAA, but the ability to respond in a timely fashion. The autoresponder should handle this issue, but not all clients understand.
-
This medical practice should have a security advisor who they can go to for answers on this type of question. They are who you should be asking.
-
I think if it was me and my client, what I would recommend is getting a HIPPA compliant email hosting account and making a submission email with it. Then setting an auto responder to the email account telling them that it is not checked. Also I might try to put a disclaimer some where in the listing as well not to email medical issues.
You can only hurt your business so much by being compliant to peoples stupidities.
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
-
Adding Schema to multi-location Wordpress Website using Schema Pro
All, we're building a new version of our existing website using Wordpress and have both Yoast SEO Premium and Schema Pro installed. Our site has 70, a medical practice, has 70 different locations. Each one of our locations has a page tile like the following: "Los Angeles | ABC Dental". The first part of the site title is the town we're located in followed by our site name. Using Schema Pro, we're not sure about what to place into the "Name" field. You can see the direction from Schema Pro for local businesses here, https://wpschema.com/docs/add-schema-markup-for-a-local-business-page/ By default Schema Pro has the name field set to Site Title. However, using this on all 70 or our landing pages wouldn't provide the local aspect we want. It would just say ABC Dental. We changed this to use a new custom field where we could enter a more descriptive name. Using our page title example of "Los Angeles | ABC Dental", would we simply enter this into the name field of Schema Pro? If not, would we format this another way such as "ABC Dental Los Angeles" We could use some help in a strategy for Schema markup for multi-location businesses, in particular, the name field. All other information such as address, phone number, etc seems rather straight forward. Thank you for the assistance
Local Listings | | morciuoli0 -
Yahoo Local Business Listings Hijacked
We are a solar company with three locations. When claiming our business listings on Yahoo (Yext), we noticed that one of them had already been claimed. The name of our company and our phone number were changed to a lead generation company. Upon further inspection, this company has hijacked hundreds of listings throughout the state and the country. To see the extent of it, go here:
Local Listings | | SS.Digital
https://search.yahoo.com/local/s;_ylt=A0SO8odHUOZZdVUAYwBXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--;_ylc=X1MDMTM1MTE5NTExOARfcgMyBGdwcmlkA3loNXdiQlJqVE9HMm9MdXlUSklLdEEEbl9zdWdnAzEEb3JpZ2luA3NlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDMjIEcXVlcnkDc29sYXIgY29ubmVjdG9yIGlydmluZQR0X3N0bXADMTUwODI4MTk4MA--?fr2=sb-top-search&p=solar+connector+irvine&fr=yfp-t- Or, just search in Yahoo's Local search section for "Solar Connector Irvine" or pretty much any city in California. On every hijacked listing, the company name is changed to "Solar Connector" and the phone number is changed to a unique local number, but all the other information is left the same. Now when people think they are calling our business, they get a shady lead gen company instead. I have submitted a request to Yext and have tried (and failed) to find a support phone number. This is a widespread, blatant fraud, and I would hope they would have interest in fixing it. Solar Connector (fake name) is associated with SolarAmerica.com, which is run by Clean Energy Experts, which was purchased by Sunrun (a publicly traded company). My specific question is, does anyone have any insight on the best method for getting help from Yahoo/Yext? Other than through their "help portal" on the website. I need to speak with a human being.1 -
What is the radius for local search results
Does anyone know if there is a specific radius google uses to display local search results or is it simply based on the number of competitors or industry vertical.
Local Listings | | coolhandluc
Let's say I am based in covent garden London and I am looking for an indian restaurant. I assume that all results will be very localized as there are plenty of Indian restaurants in convent garden. But If i was looking for, let's say "wooden pipe shop" (i believe there is none in convent garden) what would google display? how far away from my desired location will google be able to extend it's results to?0 -
Unique Local Citation Descriptions?
Hello! As SEO’s we have always understood that it’s best practice to craft a number of unique descriptions when submitting to local directories, rather than using one generic description across all directories. However, if we look at this logically; An average business owner (even if Google didn't exist) wouldn't bother to vary descriptions. They would have a generic brand template and simply submit the same description to each directory. What do you think? Is having unique descriptions a MUST for Local Business Citations, or is it ok to use one generic one? I look forward to hearing your thoughts, Lee.
Local Listings | | Webpresence0 -
NAP question and Google local.
Hello, My client has successfully grown one of their event venues locally (lets call it venue A) and on the back of that bought two more venues (B & C). Then created an umbrella company to manage all three. He now wants to market the umbrella company and so redirected the original successful venue domain (A) to the new umbrella company domain. The umbrella company is located at the same address as the original venue A. So it shares the same address, phone number, website as venue A but a different name. All this done before me. He has a Google local page for the original venue - venue A- and changed the domain on it to the new one. He also has Google local pages for the other two venue locations. But doesn't have a Google local page for the umbrella company. Now he finds rankings are down. Looking around I can see that his citations are all based on the original successful venue name A - but he has changed the website URL on many of the citations to the new domain.So a bit of a mess as we have a mixture of addresses, same phone number for all 4 , different business names for all 4, same website for all 4. If all the venues plus the umbrella company are in the same city, but have different names and addresses but the same phone number (for bookings) and web address, are they allowed a Google local page each? I suggest just having a Google local page for the umbrella company and remove the others as they are not actually separate businesses although they do have different addresses. But unsure if this is correct or necessary. Not sure how to progress with this one and any help appreciated?
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
Never Removed My Local Listings?
Hi Local SEO experts, A while back we created Google My Business listings for a few of our company locations. A couple of months ago we removed them, because we realized that G might not consider them company locations as they weren't constantly staffed. Only problem is that they started showing up again. Truthfully I don't mind, but I just want to make sure the business won't get penalized for it. They say "claim this business" on the local listing because it's not claimed by us anymore. Is this okay or can we get in trouble for it? If it's not okay, how do I go about removing them if I don't have access to it? Thanks for your time, Rachel
Local Listings | | Rachel_J0 -
NPA. Adding two new locations. What phone numbers to use?
Hi everyone, Our client wants to add two new locations. Not sure what phone number to use.
Local Listings | | Ryan_V
We have main phone 800 number, with no adders associated, and local phone numbers for locations which we do SEO for. New two locations are not for SEO purposes. Client just want them to be listed on website and on major directories for now. Understanding NPA importance:
Should we use main 800 for both locations?
Should we get new phone numbers for each one? Thanks0 -
Competitor with 4 listings at same address
Hi there. I went to www.google.it and did a search for "Scuola di inglese a Miami" (English school in Miami) The result I got was that one Company (Kaplan International) ranked with several listings at the same address and with different languages. I read several time that you are only allowed to have one listing pr address. How is this possible? Will they eventually get merged or penalized? Best regards maps?q=scuola+di+inglese+a+miami&ie=UTF-8&ei=psJ0U5DFAcnXOdbIgNgG&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ
Local Listings | | E_F0