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.
Local SEO: Special charakters in brand name?
-
Hey guys,
we run a local gym in Germany located in Nuremberg called: "STUDIO N°1 - natürlich fit".
Our domain is: www.studio-no1.de
We are currently working on a new website since our current Website isn't really SEO optimized. Until then I would like to start optimizing some off-page attributes. As far as I know one of the main points in Local SEO is that your firm is registered at important directories. In our case we are already registred in most of the important german directories.
The problem is that our oficicial company name has a special charakter included. This means that in some cases we have "N°1" and in some others "No1! Our Google Business name for example has "N°1", facbook not (no special charakter allowed). Germanys most important site for listings: Gelbeseiten, doesn't even allow special charakters in brand names....
On which name should I focus to get all the business listings to have identical NAP informations? Does it even matter?
Schould I focus on "STUDIO No1 - natürlich fit" or "STUDIO N°1 - natürlich fit"?
I hope you could understand my problem. Big Thanks
Jonas
-
Hi Jonas,
If re-branding is not an option, then it sounds like you will continue to experience NAP inconsistency, of the type you've noticed and explained. Without settling on a single brand for all references across the web, inconsistency sounds unavoidable.
-
If you Google our brand name including the special character, you ll also get results with No1 and vice versa. The SERP results are not the same but it seems like Google can somehow understand the difference. N°1 (numéro) is actually french for No1!
So if you also consider "usability", No1 could be the best choice. Contrary to Google, a lot of business listing sites do not understand that N°1 and No1 are actually the same. So if you type in "Studio N°1" you will not get any results! Since a lot of people might not even know where to find the ° on their keyboards, they might just type in No1. But on the other hand I would like support branding effects on N°1, since it's our ofical name.
Right now I would just changes to No1 on major business listings and keep N°1 for important sites like Google Business for branding. I would also keep using N°1 for title and description for branding. Seems like you have to accept NAP inconsistency since re branding is definetly not an option!
What do you think?
Big thanks for your responses!
-
I wasn't going to throw out re-branding quite yet, but yeah that would make sense from a couple angles. With that special character how do I say the name? Is it spoken like "NO. 1" or is it "N Degree 1" or is it "N - 1"? I actually wasn't sure how to say it. This is definitely going to be a tough one to get a handle on citation-wise.
-
Hi Jonas!
I haven't had to deal with special characters much, personally, but here's how I look at this. It's going to be most important that your website and your Google My Business page match up - so, it sounds like Google is supporting your special character, so be sure your website is branded that way, too. As for your other citations, I do feel some concerns. You may need to stick to building citations only on those directories that support your special character, or what you will end up with is a bunch of citations that are sharing your phone number, address and website URL, but not your name.
Unfortunately, even if you do stick to building citations only on platforms which support the special character, you are likely to run into a problem because of the way data is shared around the local ecosystem. For example, if you create a citation on golocal and they do accept your character, but they then push that data to das ortliche, and this platform doesn't support the character, it could automatically change the N°1 to No1, meaning that citation inconsistency could end up being auto-generated around the web for the business, simply because of the way data is shared (see: https://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-europe). So, basically, I think you're going to have NAP inconsistencies no matter what you do here.
Is it a big enough problem for the business to consider re-branding? That really depends on how well their business is already known. If they aren't well-known, a re-brand might make sense.
-
Consistency matters for citations, and this is definitely a case I haven't dealt with before. Since the name is so unique and many sites won't allow for special characters I would pick one format to use across local citations. I guess the big question is how sites see the special character. If they see "No1" as "NO-1" that might work against you from a branding/dupe listing standpoint. If the rest of the information is the same across the citation sources, then it's possible the name variations could get aggregated together. In that case No1 and N°1 could become synonymous and acknowledged as one and the same.
I see a lot of sites are respecting the special character, so the best advice is to try and make it as consistent as possible. If you have a minority not respecting the character I wouldn't worry too much about it. You're playing a numbers game, so the more sites (quality sites) that have the special character will help you. The ones without may count for slightly less, but might not hurt you too much.
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
-
Local Landing Page Optimization and Multiple GMB Listings
Hello, We’re building out a site for our business that has close to 100 office locations in different cities. Many of these are ‘partner brands’ that we have acquired under our brand. Similar to a franchise model. We want to be able to help users find offices near their location. Each office will have it’s own landing page with a physical address and contact information. We know we’ll have to build out unique copy and markup customized to the office/location. We’ve already read through https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages as well. We’re also considering ‘silos’ to build out pages for each location. To preserve authority and avoid cannibalization; our thought was having each location as sub-folders off of our domain (i.e. domain.com/locations/Partner#1/). The other option would be using a sub-domain (i.e. Partner.Domain.com/) which we noticed competitors doing and treating each sub-domain as their own independent site. Is all of the above the correct strategy? Any further suggestions? Should we fill out a separate GMB for each office and should they all use the same brand name? (in other words “BrandA” vs. “BrandA” - Brooklyn Office). In addition to GMB; would each location need local listings created (also all under the same name)? Any help or insight would be very much appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you in advance. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R0 -
Does Google prioritise local domains?
I'm in Australia targeting Australian traffic. I often see US domains in the Google SERPS and wonder if that indicates an opportunity for local (Australian) domains to rank?
Local Listings | | Lazeh0 -
Radius Size around GMB location for google local search
We are a digital marketing agency Our clients are (virtually all) retail automotive dealerships. We compete in various market places coast to coast (USA). Since Google puts retail automotive dealerships under Local SEO umbrella, is it known ( published ) how large is the radius around my client's Google My Business rooftop's address? How wide is their search 'reach' according to Google? Asked another way, in a triangular, three SEO geo area, with one city being at the epicenter of the population dispersion, and my client, versus my client's competitors being different distances from where the majority of the population emanates from, all other SERP factors being equal (assumption) between the two competitors, how far is each clients REACH from a Local Search standpoint. Is this known? Published by Google. ONE example: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/BMW+of+South+Albany,+U.S.+9W,+Glenmont,+NY/42.7662693,-73.8138088/@42.6727121,-73.7993527,12z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x89dde0fe8829c405:0xd915fb9b3b60bf33!2m2!1d-73.7973301!2d42.589211!1m0!3e0
Local Listings | | GaryT_SEO1 -
Changing the business name in citations and GMB
In Australia, some businesses are Pty Ltd (Proprietary Limited) hence, their business name ends with xxx Pty Ltd. How accurate do we have to be when building citations or updating citations that Pty Ltd is included in the business name? We've got clients who have left out Pty Ltd in their previously built citations and we're wondering if it's worth the time to actually update them to include Pty Ltd. Also, does changing a business name affect its rankings? This is more than just "Pty Ltd", it's changing from XYZ to ABC. We've previously had to change a client's address on their GMB and this had a negative effect on the client's rankings. Will changing the business name have an adverse effect? Thank you in advance for your advices!
Local Listings | | Gavo1 -
Which Rank Trackers Include Local 3-pack Rankings?
Granted the Local 3-pack is heavily influenced by the distance between the user and the business, when you actually include the city name in the search, the local 3 pack result doesn't center the map at the city in the search and not the user's location so it is much more consistent despite the searcher's location. So my personal opinion is that it is worth tracking local 3-pack when you use a keyword such as "Home Inspection Seattle Wa" With that said, which rank tracking services includes the local 3-pack in their tracking results, other than of course Bright Local?
Local Listings | | JCCMoz0 -
For Google's Structured Data, should I change my listings from Product schema to Local Business schema?
I was reading Google's Structured Data spec, and I'm considering changing the schema of our listing pages from the Product schema to the Local Business schema. Is this a good idea? To give you a little more info, the pages that I'm classifying are listings for physical spaces that our website rents out for activities, such as meetings. Here's an example of a listing: https://www.peerspace.com/pages/listings/550ddcde2f352d0800fc186b Our goal is to add the proper schema.org tags to the page so that our spaces show up in local searches, such as "meeting space in San Francisco." The problem is that when we add location microdata (addressLocality, addressRegion, etc.) to our current "Product" schema, Google tells us that "Products" can't have a location. However, we aren't quite a "Local Business" either, since we don't publicly share our space's street addresses—only the space's neighborhood/city/state for privacy reasons. As a result, we get an error from Google's Structured Data Tool as a "Local Business" page because "streetAddress" is required for Local Businesses. Should we switch to the Local Business schema anyway, even though we get structured data errors for streetAddress? Or is it better not to include the location information in the microdata so that we don't have errors? Does Google penalize you for incomplete tags? Any input is appreciated!
Local Listings | | stuartstein0 -
Are Yellow Pages links good for SEO
I have a client that has 2500 yellowpages.com links like this one http://m.yellowpages.com/hillside-nj/guardianship-services Are these SEO relevant? Can they hurt SEO efforts. Is this something should push for clients? Can Yellow pages be a good link building strategy? What say you?
Local Listings | | donsilvernail0 -
Local citations from business directories in other countries
Hi all, I normally work for clients in my home county (The Netherlands) and with local citation building I focus on Dutch websites or well know .com websites in the Netherlands. My rule of thumb kinda was, if it’s not known in the Netherlands it isn’t worth getting mentioned there. Since The Netherlands are pretty small and I think Google ain’t perfect I was wondering if it makes sense to list a Dutch business on any .com business listings that are internationally big, but aren’t well known in the Netherlands. Two reasons that got me thinking this direction: A big well known Dutch company offers a service such as Moz local and did integrate their service with several international business listing websites that I never heard off, since these business directories focus themselves on other parts of the world. Google ain’t perfect and I think they got more budget to identify trustworthy business directories with an international focus or a focus on America then with a focus on The Netherlands. So I’m wondering if it makes any sense to list a Dutch business on let’s say the top 20 international business directories (although these directories don’t have any brand recognition in The Netherlands).
Local Listings | | Bob_van_Biezen0