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
-
Off Page SEO help
What are the thing we ca do to increase our organic traffic for website: http://www.gobol.in/ Please suggest best possible activities to promote our website organically apart from On-page SEO.
Image & Video Optimization | | Obbserv0 -
How can I improve my search results for local pages?
My test for this specific example is http://www.mylocalgaragerepair.com This client is trying to reach out for the local terms such as garage door repair for Temecula and other cities in riverside county. I build the following page. http://www.mylocalgaragerepair.com/temecula-garage-door-repair-temecula-garage-door-service/ What am I doing wrong? Is there some plugin's or other type things that would help my rank locally? If you solve this you've solved one of the main problems I'm having with my business. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | Smallbusinessdoctor0 -
Link building to Google+ profile: any local SEO value?
Has anyone found value in building links to Google+ profile for local seo rankings? My gut tells me that it will, but I am not 100% sure. If it does, then does that mean that all the traditional SEO factors that would go into ranking a site organically also work for ranking locally for certain keywords? So far, I have found that the best thing for moving up rankings is reviews on Google+, but then does that make local SEO (from a high view point) just a race for high reviews and building the most citation? I am feeling like the differentiator for local SEO is UN-structured citations and links to Google+ profiles. Any thoughts? See you at MozCon!
Image & Video Optimization | | tonyflorespsa0 -
Updating Over 100 Local Listings - Cleaning Local Profile and Upload Questions
Hello. I'm currently updating over 100 places in Google Local Listings They have approximately 300 listings already in the account, with approx. 100 of them already verified. The amount of 'True' locations is around 130. In order to provide maximum, appropriate NAP data, I need to update the 100 as well. So, my question is in multiple parts - 1. How do I override and update the current locations in bulk? It doesn't appear that there's a way. Every time I upload a datafeed, it gets a new listing. 2. Because of all the listings in various states of verification, (Over 200), is there an easy way just to clear them out that's NOT manual? 3. Is there a way to export all CURRENT locations? The datafeed download only contains items which are trying to be updated..there doesn't appear to be a way to export all current data. Thanks for any help you can provide about a project of this size is appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | WebTalent0 -
Google Local Listings dropped in all major keywords
One of our websites had dropped dramatically in all of his major keywords over the past several days. He was ranked in the maps section in google (the old pages not the google plus pages) in the top 3 in his most important keywords and all of a sudden they dropped off the first page completely - not just down one or 2 places. Not sure what happened and how to fix it.. help please!!!
Image & Video Optimization | | levylevy0 -
Better ranking for google places
Hi, What can i do to rank better in Google for local listings? im already ranking number 1 for my keywords after local listings, but i really want to improve that, because im loosing a lot of traffic, I do have my business listed in local.yahoo.com, yelp citysearch.com etc.. and i constantly build my link to google places plage. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | vladraush990 -
Is anyone else seeing 192.com taking over google.co.uk?
Just searched Google.co.uk for: beauty salons in chelmsford and on page 3, 192.com have 7 listings What's going on? Is anyone else seeing stuff like that?
Image & Video Optimization | | Rosewood1 -
Google Places 3rd Party Reviews...
I have a client in the wedding industry who has quite a few awesome reviews on WeddingWire and a few other wedding resources. I've looked at the competition on Google Places, and Google counts their WeddingWire reviews. However, Google is not showing or counting my client's WeddingWire reviews, when in fact my client has better ratings and more reviews. Any ideas on why this might be or how I can get Google to include these reviews for my client? Thanks so much!!
Image & Video Optimization | | Linwright0