Multiple local addresses for one domain
-
Hi Mozzers!
If I have a website that has a separate office in each state that they wish to rank locally for eg: "service CityA" "service CityB" etc
Would it be best to have a separate subdomain for each major city (unique content on each) with the office address specific to that city? Then there would be a separate Google places listing the subdomain as the website.
Or should we just use subfolders? Would Google Places accept the subfolder as the web address?
thanks!
-
Hi Joshua,
I was speaking from a Local SEO perspective, but I didn't make that clear. Sorry about that. You write:
"I just have a feeling that Google may see the subfolder landing pages as an attempt to game the Local listings"
Now, typically, when dealing with local clients with multiple locations, I simply create a unique page for each of the locations - just a file, and no need to build out with subdomains or subfolders. It sounds like perhaps you are dealing with a client with more complex needs than this?
I have searched to no avail for any reliable documentation which states that Google would view either subdomains or subfolders with suspicion or favor. I have never seen any discussion of a preference on their part. I'm not sure anyone but a Google Places rep would be able to offer you a reliable answer on this
A final note - be aware that when you designate any URL other than the homepage URL of a website as being appropriate on a Place Page, Google's display is likely to show only the homepage URL, but when you click on the link, it takes you to the page specified.
I'm sorry not to have a better answer to your question. I guess my answer is that there is an absence of data that Google would view either subfolders or subdomains as spammy in relation to Places.
-
the subdomain vs subfolder issue was more a question of 'which will Google Places/Local" prefer rather than a question of SEO value.
I just have a feeling that Google may see the subfolder landing pages as an attempt to game the Local listings
Any thoughts?
-
Hi Josh!
Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. You have gotten some excellent feedback on this thread so far. To recap your original question, you are asking whether it's better to use sub-domains or sub-folders for city landing pages.According to Google Places Help Forum Top Contributor, Archie Watt, there is simply no difference from and SEO perspective. I have never seen any data to the contrary. It's somewhat akin to the concept that Google doesn't care what language your website is coded in so long as they can crawl it thoroughly. Here is a thread on this topic at the Google Places Help Forum:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=3f77dd134ba635b2&hl=en
My advice - do what makes most sense for the user to use and webmaster to manage.
Best of luck!
Miriam -
It's really important to take that to heart. I get clients all the time that have had their listings/accounts rejected because they had been advised to game the local system.
But it's also important to understand your client. Back to Marriott, each of those locations is technically a different business (the hotel itself being owned by someone else, operating under the Marriott name). As an aside, it's also a ton of fun trying to establish and manage hotel Places listings while the brand is attempting the same thing for the same locations. Especially one so authoritative as Marriott.
And to throw another wrench in it, you also have to consider that Google attempts to solve as many problems as they can algorithmically (did I just make that up?). By this I mean that they don't know the inner working of your business/niche, they can only make assertions based on the info they find. I had no idea that all these Marriotts you see on the highway weren't actually "owned" by Marriott themselves until I worked with a hotel management group. The folks on the Local team didn't didn't either for a very long time.
If you're in doubt, or there is even a remote idea that your intentions are to cover more SERP space outside of legitimate reason, it's better to play it safe.
-
Here is what googles states
Businesses that operate in a service area, as opposed to a single location,
should not create a listing for every city they service. Businesses that operate
in a service area should create one listing for the central office or location
and designate service areashttp://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528
-
Hi Joshua,
You can use 1 sub folder per City and submit all of your offices to Google Adress. But in my opinion if you want to do things in a better way, I would create one subdomain for each city since they would be more targeted to the city then having multiple subdirectories.
Subdomain + page name + content would be targeted to the queries that people search for this would be more targeted and you can link them indivually in their local communities individually.
Both ways are good for what you want to do, but I do prefer the subdomain approach since for me it seem more targeted.
-
Hi Joshua,
You can use 1 sub folder per City and submitted all of you're offices to Google Adress. But in my opinion if you want to do things in a better way, I would create one subdomain since they would be more targeted to the city then having multiple subdirectories.
Subdomain + page name + content would be targeted to the queries that people search for this would be more targeted and you can link them indivually in their local communities individually.
Both ways are good for what you want to do, but I do prefer the subdomain approach since for me it seem more targeted.
-
Hey Josh,
This really depends in the situation specifically, but I can give you a few cases I've had in the last year or so.
Generally, it's OK, to have each location on a sub-folder/page specific to that address; along with a Google Places page for that page. But it depends on the type of business, locations, etc. You can kinda ask yourself the intent on adding multiple Places listings as the resulting indicators are what Google will use.
What I mean is, if you have a client that wants to get a bunch of "addresses" so they can dominate a larger area in Google Places, then you are going to run into issues. Google doesn't like PO Boxes and the like (UPS mailboxes, etc.). I've seen/got them listed a ton of times, but they are more likely to run into problems later.
If you have real locations that a person can visit, then you'll usually be ok. I handled the Places pages for a Marriott client, and each location under the Marriott brand has its own Google Places page, with links to the specific page on the primary site.
On the other hand, I just took on a lawyer that was previously advised to get a bunch of FedEx boxes around town and use those for multiple listings. He came to me for a reason.
I'm really thinking that Google takes the business type into consideration, so be mindful of that.
-
One places listing per web site and location.
but this brings up aproblem of trying to get all this site to rank. Its hard enouth to get one to rank.
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
-
Unsolved Duplicate Contents in Order Pages of Multiple Products
Hi, I have a website containing 30 software products. Each product has an order page. The problem is that the layout and content of these 30 order pages are very similar, except for the product name, for example: https://www.datanumen.com/access-repair-order/
On-Page Optimization | | ccw
https://www.datanumen.com/outlook-repair-order/
https://www.datanumen.com/word-repair-order/ Siteliner has reports these pages as duplicate contents. I am thinking of noindex these pages. However, in such a case, if a user search for "DataNumen Outlook Repair order page", then he will not be able to see the order page of our product, which drives the revenue go away. So, how to deal with such a case? Thank you.1 -
Could you please provide some suggestions about how to improve the domain popularity and link popularity of a website
Could you please provide some suggestions about how to improve the domain popularity and link popularity of our website
On-Page Optimization | | nlogix0 -
Duplicate Blog pages across different domains
Hey Moz Community, I have 3 Duplicate websites which more or less contain the same blog article ( they are copy & paste from the original website ). I am now in the process of changing my duplicate websites and I stumbled upon this problem: if I have to change the content for all the duplicate articles I have across my different domains it would be a very time consuming task and on the other hand I don't want to no index, follow the duplicate articles because I want to use them for SEO purposes. Should I only change the articles that brought significant traffic and no index, follow the rest ? What do you think ? Thanks, Anddrei
On-Page Optimization | | kiraftw0 -
Should "white label" sites be unique IP addresses?
My company is planning "white label" subsites with unique URLs. Should these sites be unique IPs in order to use them for link building?
On-Page Optimization | | theLotter0 -
Multiple Translations on a Wordpress Blog
Hi, If I wanted to have multiple translations available on the following wordpress blog: Packageforwardingservice.com. What would be the best strategy? Use a plugin or use a subdomain such as spanish.packageforwardingservice.com? If the second option how would I add the translated content? install another version of wordpress on host? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MasonInteractive0 -
Will a new domain name help rankings
If I purchase a domain name that links to my site with the new domain name being keyword specific....will that help boost rankings in Google? Reason I ask is that a particular website always ranks higher than ours because of their domain name (keyword specific). They are currently not even "open" and they still manage to rank high. I checked for links with the seomoz tools but did not see any high links etc.. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | teachcsg0 -
Two different keywords - one URL
We're new to SEO, but have two keywords that are really not quite the same, but Google has targeted the same URL for us ... which means that SEO Moz is recommending we optimize the same URL, for opposite keywords (using the on page SEO). For example, the keywords (these aren't our keywords) of say, "beer brewing" and "ways to make beer for small breweries" are both pointing at our home page. The on page SEO is showing that "beer brewing" is a rank of say, a google ranking of 9. However, "ways to ..." is a google ranking of 47. So ... what am I supposed to do now? Do I rewrite the page to have "ways to ..." more prominent? I cannot really have the title and h1's include both ... What do I do now? We have about 3 or 4 of these "pairs". -- Anthony
On-Page Optimization | | apresley0 -
Purchased domain
We purchased the existing domain www.LancasterPA.com two years ago to promote local businesses. While individual pages within the site are ranking well, we can't get the home page to rank at all in Google. Would there be anything in the history of the domain that could be standing in the way? Or, what else could we check? Our other regional websites are ranking really well. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | GordyH0