Local business with multiple sites

[540SEO]

I'm auditing a local business' sites (a spa) and I wanted to run my recommendations by everyone.

There are 3 sites:

www.sitename1.com -- main store location, used for Google Places listing #1 www.sitename2.com -- 2nd store location, used for Google Places listing #2 www.sitename3.com -- used for product sales for both locations

Sitename1.com has the most ranking power. I'm going to recommend that they move sitename2.com and sitename3.com to sitename1.com as subfolders, 301 redirecting each page to the corresponding page on sitename1.com/subfolder.

Google Places listing #2 would be changed from www.sitename2.com to www.sitename.com/location2.

Any risks or problems with this strategy anyone can see?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Keith,

If these businesses are in the same metropolitan area, then I definitely give thumbs up to consolidation. Yes, put 301 redirects in place.

Regarding optimizing the footer, there is not a problem with listing several addresses. As long as you have 10 or less locations, consider this a fine practice. I do recommend using hCard for the the formatting of the addresses...and do make your Contact Page a good strong page featuring both addresses in hCard. Also a good idea to make a Google MyMap for each location and embed and link to it on the contact page.

Make the copy clear that you've got the 2 locations from the homepage forward.

I feel you are making a smart choice for this business. Good luck!

[540SEO]

Related question: if location #2 is brought under site 1 as a location page, what's best practice as far as putting the address in the footer sitewide?  Put location 1 address in the footer everywhere but the location 2 page(s)? Avoid altogether?

Thanks --

[540SEO]

Hi -- thanks for your help. Here is more info. in response to your answer:

-I have picked up duplicate content problems and will be working with the client to fix this

-The locations are in the same metro area (good to know that separate states can be a good reason to keep separate sites)

-The lost rankings/Places shake-up is a bit concerning. Site 1 is well-established and has domain authority of 38 and home page authority of 48 (this is the site I'd likely move everything to). Location 2's site is 2.5 years old but has 23 domain authority and 36 page authority. Site 3 is an online store for spa products and very new (not yet launched).

For queries that trigger a Places result, location #1 outranks location #2 in every instance I can find. Having location #2 disappear for a while wouldn't be great, but from what I see the location #1 site ranks really well Organically (and there is a prominent link to location #2 on the home page) so we may be OK.

Also, there are a few queries where local results are not triggered, and the location #2's site ranks high. I'm not worried about the Organic ranking scenario in this case because a 301 redirect should largely preserve the position, correct?

In any case, I think the benefits outweigh the costs and consolidated ranking power potential. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the Places shake-up will be short-lived and advise the client accordingly.

Thanks -- let me know if I missed anything.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Keith!

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. I will do my best to answer your question.

It's a very common practice for companies to have a single website for their multiple locations. For example, an auto dealership with locations in San Jose, San Francisco and San Rafael does not need to have 3 websites. They can simply have one and do landing pages for each of the three cities.

The main benefit I can discern of consolidating your client's 3 sites will be greater ease of management.

One thing I can imagine that you are going to need to be careful about is this: do sites 1, 2 or 3 duplicate one another's content in any way? If so, you need to avoid this. Don't have the landing page copy for the 2 different locales be the same.

Another thing I'm curious about is the locales of the 2 physical offices. How far apart are they? If they were in different states, I'd be inclined to keep the businesses on separate sites, but if they are in the same state, I think having the one site will be fine.

My only other concern would be potential lost rankings for the other sites. Are they old and established, or relatively new and low ranking? If the former, it would be a tough decision to get rid of them. If the latter, this re-organization could be a smart idea.

Finally, do realize that when you make changes in Google Places, it can cause a temporary shakeup. Even small changes like altering the domain the Place Page is pointing to can result in a time delay until Google's updates its index. Prepare the client for that possibility.

I hope my thoughts have been helpful, Keith. Good luck!

[JohannNortje]

Hi sorry I have read your initial question more in detail and did some further pondering and research and as I understand it, according to Google's places quality guidelines if you are moving all the store locations to best ranking domain as sub folders you should still only have one listing for the central store and add service areas.

You can go that way but then you will loose two possbile places listings. But then again on the other hand some one can report the listings as is to Google and they can remove the listing and see it as duplicate listing.

http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528

I would do what you suggested above accept only keep one listing as is to best ranking domain and then edit the listing with service areas if not already listed.

Even though they do not say this in detail in their help I am sure Google might flag your edit if you point to an existing domain places listing.

Hope this helps,

[540SEO]

Hi -- there are no subdomains in the equation here. I would be moving to subfolder pages (not subdomains), and the current domains are separate domain names altogether.

Thanks --

[JohannNortje]

After panda there has been a few people that would create sub domains saying that this worked as lets say all content that is related to yellow went to yellow.domain.com and red to red.domain.com.

Why I am bringing this up I think you should maybe look at this and be sure if moving to main domain as sub domain that Google Panda will not penalise the over all site, this can be prevented by making sure you not moving over any of the old content that was low performing, if there is some of the old content that was low performing I would improved it and the move it over to sub domain and 301 redirect as you said to the new sub domain and content that is better when it comes to post panda on site seo factors (if this makes sense).

Here is a interesting forum thread you could read that might influence your decission.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4394776.htm

Hope this helps,