Question Regarding Multiple Google Places Pages
-
Hello,
One of my clients has about 20 different google places pages at locations that are not real. The previous SEO company thought that would help with local search. My problem is that several great reviews have been written on each page by real customers. I want to close the places pages for locations that don't exist, but I don't want to lose the reviews. Is anyone aware of a solution for this? I have searched Google's forums and have not found anything.
-
Hi Bjolley,
Thanks for coming to the forum to ask your question! I'm glad to see Members contributing their thoughts, but think a point needs to be clarified here.
This is not a case of claiming the 'best' profile and making it your client's authoritative Place Page - it is a case of claiming the CORRECT profile - the one for the business' legitimate location.
At this point, if this were my client, I would not be worrying about losing a few reviews on his phony Place Pages. I'd be sweating whether his account would be penalized before I could report the bogus listings through Google's report a problem link.
Now, that being said, I have seen cases where Google has accidentally displayed the reviews for one geographic location on another location's Place Page, but so far as I know, there is no way to save the reviews. Tell the client they are lucky you are trying to clean up the mess and that going forward, they will need to work on building up new reviews over time to replace what has been lost.
As a final thought, before you report the incorrect Place Pages, why not copy the good reviews and use them as testimonials on the client's website? You might even try doing this with hReview markup code to see if Google will eventually pick them back up again and display them on the authoritative Place Page. But first things first...tell the client you've got to get that record cleaned up as best you can, and fast!
Good luck to you!
Miriam
-
I don't think it would be a good idea to claim all of these profiles. Google will most likely just suspend your account. Claim only the best one with the most/best reviews on it. On all of the other duplicate profiles use the "report a problem" link and choose the "place has another listing" option. In the comments, give Google the direct URL to the claimed profile.
I am unsure how they will handle reviews for this, but at the very least you'll have a starting point with the best profile these previous "SEOs" did.
-
WOW an SEO firm that thought Quantity over Quality is important, NO!!!!!!
I am unaware of any solution for this, as I had a similar issue due to the company i work for has changed names a few times for Branding, so before i got here there were 3 -4 Place pages for each one of our 15 locations. It sucked to say the least especially since Google does not allow the use of extensions for authentication.
I would like to hear if anyone has any ideas, although I do not think it is possible. Especially since in most cases the comments are from 3rd party sources.
Hope you find an answer though!
w00t!
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
-
Videos on Home Page
Hello, My company is currently in the process of editing our website's homepage. My creative team wants to add several videos to an already big home page. I would like a more simple and less interactive home page. There has to be close to a half dozen videos already on the page. I know that Google bots have trouble crawling some items like java. I also know that page speed is a huge factor and the mobile first index is quickly approaching. Is it ok to have all of these videos on home page? Could this due harm to the page. All the videos are hosted on Vimeo and typically expand from some sort of icon. Page load time has been an issue and this will probably be our last update before google's mobile first index. I just want to make sure I am giving the correct advice by saying there is no problem with 6+ videos on a home page. Any advice would be great! Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | aua0 -
Good Example of Local Pages With Multiple Services
Can I get a site that is well optimized and has a good landing page for a business that serves multiple regions with multiple services. For example they may have construction and mold removal services and serve Indianapolis, Columbus Ohio, Louisville Ky.
Image & Video Optimization | | Atomicx0 -
Google Places - Bulk Upload Solution
Hi we have a client who currently has over 50 stores in the country (Australia). Some of these stores already have a Google Plus Local Pages and manage them individually. Most of them have reviews, and images. The corporate office wants to place all these stores under one bulk account to bring consistency with the brand and it's image. Now this presents a issue. From our research we have 3 options: 1. Un-verify the listings in each of the accounts and once this has been done, claim them individually in the account you want to manage them under. 2. Delete the listings from Maps and then recreate them under the bulk feed in account. This will allow you to manage them with the rest of your listings more efficiently, however if the stores have any reviews these may be lost. 3. Create new listings and leave the other ones and these should get merged, the issue here is the data could be incorrect and it could cause some duplication. Our goal is to transfer the listings to a single bulk account without losing the - reviews, and images.Or avoiding new problems such as duplicate listing or the listing gets somehow deleted for weeks during the process, causing massive frustration with all the stakeholders involved. I think our best bet is (1) to get the stores to individually unverify their account. However this may risk the lost of reviews and images. Plus it will be highly unlikely that the store owners will follow through or like doing this, and would be a painful long communication process which may take 2+ months. Are they any suggestions on how to best approach this situation? Thanks, Matt Carter
Image & Video Optimization | | Mattcarter080 -
Should You Geotag Pages For Local SEO?
If so can where do I insert the geo tag? I want to do this for a landing page in a different city, and i've simply put the Geo tag in this landing page. Is this right? Help, NEWBIE!!!
Image & Video Optimization | | Buzzwords0 -
How quick do you see google places rankings update
We have submitted allot of citations over the last 60 days for a client. A very prominent business in their city. Pretty good SEO rankings considering we just started doing SEO a couple months ago. Over the last several weeks we have fixed all listings and removed duplicates. Site is optimized properly and etc.. After how many weeks should I see a change in places rankings? Right now they are not moving up at all.
Image & Video Optimization | | waqid0 -
Google Maps/Places in Organic SERP
This question is regarding having a Google Places snippet consisting of your business location and opening hours appearing in Google SERP when the business name is searched for. One of our competitors who has a location within their name e.g. 'Widgets of Oxford' have a Google Places snippet appear on the RHS of the search results (where Google Ads usually go) when searched for. We are trying to replicate this for our business but cannot seem to find any information relating to doing this apart from that this only appears for them as they have a location in their name. This is because we see a similar snippet when we search for our business name in the format "OurBusinessName in OurLocation). Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | jannkuzel0 -
How To Increase Google Shopping Rankings?
What are the best ways to help influence your products rankings in Google Shopping SERPS? Aside from the obvious factors (ie Product Title, Description, brand, etc), what are the key factors in optimizing your products?
Image & Video Optimization | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
How far away does your Google Local Listing Show up - and how to improve.
How does google decide if a listing from one city shows up in another? When I do a search for a lawyer in my city my competition from another town shows up - but I don't show up when I search their town. Only 3 listings show up for both searches - so it's not necessarily a rank thing. Any ideas on improving the distance your listings show up for? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | musillawfirm0