Geotag city different from postal address. Can I mention both cities together in title tags?
-
This boundary thing seems to be haunting me at the mo. Oh what I'd give for somewhere within a defined boundary!
Anyway, just noticed a client has one city in its official postal address, and another city under its geotag.
So I'm looking at the title tags and I'm thinking of mentioning both cities on the main entry pages (6 of them) then dividing mention in sub pages.
Is this acceptable to Google? Might they see mention of both cities in homepage title tag (and other entry pages) as spammy. I don't want to upset Google!!!
PS. Both cities are core markets. I would say they're of equal importance in terms of current business bookings and business potential.
-
I will have another go I think
-
Hi Luke,
I'm so glad Mike replied to you. As Mike said, what you put on your website is up to you, but I was hoping you'd actually describe the scenario going on in your region a little more fully in that thread. It's good you got an answer, but bringing Google's attention to the border change issues and getting a response to that would likely be helpful to lots and lots of your neighbors. Maybe you can attempt to discuss that in their forum at some point.
-
http://productforums.google.com/d/topic/business/2b-n5hzA9EU/discussion - hope that helps > I posted it before and someone got wrong end of stick, so tried again.
The person answering here suggests it is fine, and having just looked back at SEOMoz forum notes, I've been given same advice from someone on these forums before.
That said, it might be logical in some way to have both, but it might land you in trouble as you've suggested. Would be so good to clarify this point.
A good many people will be getting this wrong.
-
Hi Luke,
Do you want to link to the thread you started in the Google and Your Business Forum?
-
Thanks Miriam. I haven't had an answer, so not holding up much hope. Is there anyone on the SEO Moz team who may have stumbled across such a specific ssue before? Do you have better access to Google? L
-
Good, Luke. I really do hope you get an answer on this. Deserves attention!
-
Hi Miriam, thanks again for your feedback. I've asked the question, so awaiting some feedback. Hope I can get their position on this (I live in hope!). Yes, it was me before mentioning some other sites. This is impacting me in several places at the moment, which is a right pain! If Google provides an answer, I'll definitely try to share it around
-
Hi Luke,
Now, was that you who started a similar thread on this recently about the great confusion of the postal service vs. administration in your country? I know that I just discussed a really similar situation in another thread, but for some reason, I can't seem to find it right now in the system. So, perhaps that was you, or perhaps a countryman of yours in the same predicament.
My thinking on this is that the postal address has to be seen as your core geo data, and thus would be the main thing occupying your footer, contact us page, and the front end of many of your titles and tags. But your situation is extraordinary. People visiting City A want to find a pizza in City A...they don't want to send mail to City B. So, Google would be crazy to penalize you for including City A in much of your optimization, but don't take my word for it.
I find your scenario with the conflict of boundaries to be important enough and curious enough to report to Google. I sincerely recommend that you do so. At the very least, you will have documentation of your efforts to play by the rules should anything go wrong in future. This just isn't an issue that comes up every day, and I believe you and your neighbors deserve an official answer from Google about how they would like you to proceed when such confusion surrounds locale in your area. I'd post about this to the Google and Your Business Forum with a very catchy title, such as:
Our Part Of England Is All Mixed Up - Please Guide Us, Google.
Something like that. Should grab some attention. Here is the link to the forum, if you don't have it handy:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business
I'd love to know if you get an answer.
-
This problem keeps coming up at the mo, partly because I'm working for out-of-town locations. Hey, ho...
Anyway, now I'm in S.W. England. The site has a Bristol postal address. But is actually in Bath & NE Somerset County. So the post office claims them for Bristol, the administrators for Bath, and the business is about the same distance from both.
Bristol is more of a key market than Bath, but both are very important.
This is a pizza takeaway, pizza restaurant, bar, function room. There's a homepage, and 4 key landing pages for each key service, then loads of internal pages under each category.
Web developer did this in the title tags - key service (e.g Function Room)| Bristol & Bath | [then company name] on the 4 key landing pages. Then they've targeted Bristol and Bath individually on interior pages - e.g. Function Room **| **Bath | [company name] on the party venue page.
This seems OK to me, but not sure if Google will find this spammy or not (2 key cities in the title tags). In which case I will start playing with the title tags. I don't want them to take a hit from Google, particularly with all the changes coming through at the mo. I'm being very cautious.
I also question the div between, for the service (e.g. Function Room) and they city in question. I would take that first div out.
Any thoughts on this would be great. I'm finding UK boundary confusion, and how Google might deal with that in instances like this, mighty confusing.
-
Hi Luke,
Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. Now, I want to be sure I understand what you are referencing by using the word 'geotag'. Please, give a definition of that. The language of Local remains non-standard, so we sometimes use different terms for the same elements.Doing Local SEO, one has to get into Google's mindset. Google's approach to Local is that everything is founded on physical location. So, the name, address and phone number is the core of any Local SEO campaign. In cases where a client has offices in city A, but also welcomes clients from cities B and C or goes to clients to serve them in cities B and C, the client's main data is still about city A, because that is where he is physically located and that is what Google cares about most.
I'm not entirely sure about your particular client's business model. Is he, for example, a dentist located in San Franciso whose patients come to him from Oakland and Berkeley as well, or, is he, for example, a lawn care specialist located in San Francisco who has a service radius including Oakland or Berkeley. In any case, it's his city of location that counts most, and so, this takes priority in elements such as titles, tags, headers, footers and content.
In the case of service area businesses (plumbers, carpenters, carpet cleaners, etc.) it is a common best practice to create unique landing pages for each city in which the business goes to serve. These do not outweigh his main pages optimized for his city of location, but they are a way to let humans and bots know that the business' employees travel to these other cities to render services. You typically cannot expect to outrank other companies with physical locations in these services cities, but you can hope to gain at least some visibility for these secondary geographic terms.
Now, with what I've described, would you be able to be a little more detailed about what you would like to know, Luke? You are not in any way obliged to name the client, but perhaps you can give a few more details if you have further questions. I'll be glad to stop back by. Thanks!
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
-
302 query - can someone help
If I were to put 302s on several reasonably ranked landing pages to drive more traffic/conversions for a period of one week to a particular page, would the pages with 302s drop from their positions in the SERPS? And is this a bad idea? I want to try and drive some conversions over the next month for a particular page… Thanks for your help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jacksons_Fencing0 -
Submitting a page to Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools with nofollow tags
Hello, I was hoping someone could help me understand if there is any point to submit a domain or subdomain to Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools) and Bing Webmaster Tools if the pages (on the subdomain for example) all have nofollow/noindex tags ... or the pages are being blocked by the robots.txt file). There are some pages on a data feed onto a subdomain which I manage that have these above characteristics ... which I cannot change ... but I am wondering if it is better to simply exclude from submitting those from GWT and BWT (above) thereby eliminating generating errors or warnings ... or is it better to tell Google and Bing about them anyway then perhaps there is a chance those nofollow pages may be indexed/contextualised in some way, making it worth the effort? Many thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | uworlds
Mark0 -
Title and Meta Description Best Practice
Hi guys, I need some creative input on this. I'm working on a Hyundai dealership's website, and I want it to rank well for "used cars" in its local market. I need it to rank well for four cities for "Hyundai Dealer" also. Can you pick apart a dummy meta title and description I put together? In the example "Metropolis" will be the home city Title, "Hyundai Dealer serving Metropolis, Gotham City, Star City & Red City, NY | Used Cars Red City, NY" Description, "Visit Bob's Hyundai in Metropolis, NY. We're a new & used car dealer near Gotham City, Star City & Red City, NY." Be brutally honest and let me know what I can do to achieve this objective beyond this too if you can. I want to know how I can achieve this objective. Thanks a bunch!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | oomdomarketing0 -
Unique page URLs and SEO titles
www.heartwavemedia.com / Wordpress / All in One SEO pack I understand Google values unique titles and content but I'm unclear as to the difference between changing the page url slug and the seo title. For example: I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About I've noticed some of my competitors using url structures more like "www.competitor.com/san-francisco-video-production-about" Would it be wise to follow their lead? Will my landing page rank higher if each subsequent page uses similar keyword packed, long tail url? Or is that considered black hat? If advisable, would a url structure that includes "san-francisco-video-production-_____" be seen as being to similar even if it varies by one word at the end? Furthermore, will I be penalized for using similar SEO descriptions ie. "San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Portfolio" and San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Contact" or is the difference of one word "portfolio" and "contact" sufficient to read as unique? Finally...am I making any sense? Any and all thoughts appreciated...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | keeot0 -
NoFollow tag for external links: Good or bad?
I have a few sites that have tens of thousands of links on them (most of them are sourcing images that happen to be external links). I know that it's a good thing to externally link to reputable sources, but is it smart to place the nofollow tag on ALL external links? I'm sure there is a good chance that external links from posts from years ago are pointing to sites that may now be penalized. I feel as though nofollowing all the external links could come off as unnatural. What are the pros and cons of placing the nofollow tag on ALL external links, and also if I leave it as is and don't put the nofollow tag on them. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Cross-Site Links with different Country Code Domains
I have a question with the penguin update. I know they are really cracking down on "spam" links. I know that they are wanting you to shift from linking keywords to the brand name, unless it makes sense in a sentence. We have five sites for one company in the header they have little flag images, that link to different country domains. These domains all have relatively the same domain name besides the country code. My question is, linking these sites back and fourth to each other in this way, does it hurt you in penguin? I know they are wanting you to push your identity but does this cross-site scheme hurt you? In the header of these sites we have something like this. I am assuming the best strategy would probably be to treat them like separate entities. Or, just focus on one domain. They also have some sites that have links in the footer but they are set up like:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AlliedComputer
For product visit Domain.com Should nofollows be added on these footer links as well? I am not sure if penguin finds them spammy too.0 -
Can Using Google Analytics Make You More Prone to Deindexation?
Hi, I'm aggressively link building for my clients using blog posts and have come upon information that using Google Analytics (as well as GWT, etc.) may increase my chance of deindexation. Anyone have any thoughts on this topic? I'm considering using Piwik as an alternative if this is the case. Thanks for your thoughts, Donna
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebMarketingHUB0 -
Can someone explain how a site with no DA, links or MozTrust, MozRank can rank #1 in the SERPs?
I do SEO for a legal site in the UK and one of the keywords I'm targeting is 'Criminal Defence Solicitors'. If you search this term in Google.co.uk this site comes top www.cdsolicitors.co.uk, yet in my mozbar it has 0 links, 0 DA etc, I noticed it top a few weeks ago and thought something spammy was going on; I thought if I was patient, Google would remove it, however it still hasn't. Can someone explain how it is top in the SERPs? I've never seen this before. thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TobiasM0