Google Local Results - Incorrect Listing Url's
-
I have decided to re launch a small side project that I had to abandon a few years ago.
I want to specifically target Google Local Results.
I do need to overcome a proximity to centroid issue in a fairly competative niche.
Unfortunately a number of my listings i.e. Facebook and Yelp have less than optimal URL's.
For example:
https://www.facebook.com/businessname.targetlocation.keyword/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/business-name-key-phrase-and-keyword-locationWell you get the idea.
NB: None of these listings currently have reviews.
Now I know that its best to keep the info consistent across the board, so I wonder if I would be better off scrapping these listings in favor of ones with URL's that match the business name.
- I can see that I can merge FB pages so am guessing that this would work for FB, has anyone any experience of this?
- Am assuming yelp will have to be deleted in some way.
Any thoughts?
-
So glad this helped!
-
Thanks so much that does help.
Great advice as usual.
Justin
-
Hey there ... check out Whitespark's list of acceptable abbreviations: https://www.whitespark.ca/acceptable-google-maps-nap-abbreviations-and-variations
I think it will help with your question.
-
Hi Miriam,
Glad you like the topic
I'm thinking that cleaner URL's are better if you're trying to prompt customers for reviews, but I doubt the effect will be significant in my niche.
Other than that it's matching up the detail and I guessing that what I do might depend on the platform.
For FB the correct name is still found in the H2 tag.
For Yelp the name mirrors the URL in the H1 tag.
So I'm guessing that Yelp is perhaps more important to change than FB provided that I can get a better URL that is.
Do you have any insight into just how similar detail needs to be within your listings? For example will Google understand the following:
The addition or lack of a line like "South West England"
Details that are identical but different like "UK" V's "United Kingdom"
in the H2 tag
-
Great advice Bryan thanks...
You're probably right RE URL availability and I think that might be why the URL's were so complex to begin with.
There is almost zero engagement, one thing I do want to do is get some reviews, to improve my local results.
i know that FB will have perhaps less impact than Google but am guessing that the reviews will be far easier to achieve.
-
Hey There,
You know ... this is a really interesting topic and not actually one I have a solid answer for. If we were talking about website URLs on your own site, I'd definitely be cheering for any refinements you want to make to improve UX/SEO. But with local listing URLs, honestly, the URLs are frequently so ugly, I haven't paid a ton of attention to them, nor can I recall seeing anything written about this. I mean, look at this Superpage URL for a Whole Foods Market in California:
superpages.com/bp/Sacramento-CA/Whole-Foods-Market-L0503237111.htm
It's not exactly beautiful, is it? Other directories do a much better job, but it's just never been something I've paid a ton of attention to.
What would be the goal you'd have in mind with changing your present URLs? Do you think it would make them more recognizable, shareable, friendly in some way? Curious about this. I think it was in 2013 that Google rolled out custom URLs, which I've never really heard a ton about since then (possibly because Google has recently made it nearly impossible to get to Google+ Local pages at this point!).
At any rate, this is an interesting and worthy topic and I hope more members of the community will contribute their thoughts as to whether having beautiful local listing URLs matters, and if so, how?
-
Before you do either of those things, make absolutely sure that you can even get the URLs you'd prefer. It may be that the reason your current URLs are less than ideal is because the simpler versions weren't available at the time of creation.
That said, if there are a substantial amount of posts, engagements, etc. it may not be worth making the changes. For Facebook, I suppose it can't hurt to create a new page and merge the two, favoring the new. But Yelp is a little trickier regarding that sort of process (or lack thereof).
Lastly, ensure that any webpage (on your site, partner sites, adverts, social media, etc.) that links to the Facebook and Yelp pages is updated with these new URLs.
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
-
Why would the review count be different between the Ad and the Organic result?
A client inquired about this after finding that their review count was different on their Google Ad that appeared in the map pack compared to their organic result right below it. I am stumped so any thoughts or reasoning as to why this is the case would be appreciated. See attached screenshot! Lptujep
Reviews and Ratings | | BrianAutoshopSEO0 -
I'm wondering if reviews services like yotpo and reviews.io are worth it.
The reviews services advertise that your reviews and stars will be placed in your Google search results and this helps with rankings. Does anyone have experience using Yotpo or Reviews.io with a brick and mortar business? Or, any business for that matter? Thanks,
Reviews and Ratings | | Jarod45660 -
Review stars dropped off in Google from Rich Snippets (started in October '17 - Jan '18 timeframe)
Our review stars from Rich Snippets are not showing up in Google for Novus products. I believe these are structured correctly or at least there are no errors. We have tried to troubleshoot on our own and asked multiple SEO'er's and partners, but have not had success. Turning to MOZ! They were there in September/October timeframe but dropped off in October to January timeframe. example URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=hif+1+alpha+antibody&oq=hif+1+alpha+antibod (It seems to be off all products); This started in October to January time frame so was before the latest algo update.
Reviews and Ratings | | revelkayla0 -
What is the best online reputation management software for generating legitimate Google (and other online) reviews?
Hello! Does anyone have a good experience with using an online reputation management tool to help generate online reviews for a Google My Business listing, Facebook, etc? The reason I ask about a review software is because of my client's age demographic (50+), so we need to have an automated system to request reviews from their clients and to make it simple for them to leave reviews.
Reviews and Ratings | | eport122 -
Bug In Google System. Google Says Is Not Bug.
Hello Moz fellowship. Ive been learning and following SEO and local optimization for many years. MOZ has been a SEO playbook and bible for me. Im running into a transparency issue with Google and need some help please. I sent Google GMB this email:Hello GMB "Hello GMB There is a bug in your system that revises a previously posted review date to a become a new current post date. The bug occurs when someone updates a previously posted review with new pictures or deletes and updates new pictures. When the deletion occurs and new pictures are uploaded, the old review becomes the new date of the picture updates. This bug allows an old review to become a new review. I can send screen shots and can explain how I found this out if Google would like. Basically it doesn't show a true representation of the time line of posted reviews. Thank you"Google GMB support on the phone says it is not a bug. The problem is that its show non-factual and untruthful timeline information to potential consumers because of the original review date changes. The rep says that example: a reviewer from 3 years ago original review could show up as the most recent review with the most recent date. The main problem is, any consumer shopping and doing research would misinterpret this as being the newest review when it was not. On GMB dashboard the date gets revised to show the latest date. There is no notation that the review is old or that there has been a modification to the original review. So where is the transparency on Google's side to show the customer the actual real date of the review? This problem opens up a can of worms for millennials trying to make it happen and for business owners that are trying their best to become better at their service, etc. Especially when you want the newest review and not something from years ago or months ago or dealing with a potential harassing customer who knows the bug exist and will take advantage of the flaw and constantly update his review so it shows as being the 1st all the time. How does the online customer know this is happening?thank you.
Reviews and Ratings | | Carwrapsolutions0 -
Google crawling item page reviews
Hi Moz community, I've been trying to do some on-site work and noticed that our product pages reviews may not be totally optimized. It used to be that all of the text from the reviews appeared in the actual code of the page, but now none of that text appears, so it may not be getting crawled. The change was most likely released when we had an item page redesign. However, when I Google a review snippet, it does seem to come up, so maybe Google is crawling that data despite it not being SEO optimized. Is this really an issue if the review snippets are showing up in search, there's been a lot of talk that Google is now better at crawling javascript. Thanks
Reviews and Ratings | | znotes0 -
What's the best way to keep Google My Business reviews when the business changes names?
I work with an interior designer who is re-branding and changing her business name to focus specifically on windows. Can she keep her GMB reviews and just change the name of her business, then reverify with Google? She doesn't want to lose her current local pack ranking.
Reviews and Ratings | | obkommy1 -
Ratings showing up in results
Hi.
Reviews and Ratings | | corn2015
What is required or how long doesi t take for local reviews to show up in search results for a local business? One of my clients is starting to get quite a few positive reviews but he wants to know how long before the star rating shows up in the results.ratings s0