Do practitioner listings for the same business need to have different categories?
-
I'm trying to figure out an issue with practitioner listings, and I wanted to ask more about this because in this Q&A thread ( http://www.seomoz.org/q/multiple-businesses-at-the-same-address-avoiding-google-places-trouble ) it was stated that each listing needs to have a different category.
Sorry if this question is redundant, I just wanted to make sure I have a clear understanding before proceeding....
I'm managing local listings for a senior healthcare center that has 4 locations, and multiple practitioners at each location. I'm trying to figure out how to best handle the multiple practitioner listings, most of which appear to be scraped. I was going to claim, verify and begin managing them.
However, they all fall under the same category, "practitioner." What I've gathered from the response in the above Q&A thread is that I need to have a different category for each practitioner to please Google Places, despite the fact that "practitioner" is the best/most accurate category available in Google's pre-set categories.
Is my interpretation correct?
I'm confused because Google's guidelines say you can create a separate listing for each practitioner, which to me implies that it would be ok to use the practitioner category for each one. But then again, I want to make sure before proceeding.
Thanks,
Kim
#TECHSEO Account Manager -
Hi Kim,
So far as I know, neither Bing nor Yahoo has ever taken a public position on this subject. You could try live chat with Bing here to ask about it:
http://www.bing.com/businessportal
But, I have some doubts as to whether they will be able to quote you a rule on this. I've never seen one.
These are Yahoo's guidelines, but they make no mention of this factor:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/ll/guidelines/local-01.html
Miriam
-
One more thing I just thought of... Do these same rules apply to Yahoo and Bing local listings, or just Google?
Thanks again!
Kim
-
One more thing I just thought of... Do these same rules apply to Yahoo and Bing local listings, or just Google?
Thanks again!
Kim
-
So glad to be of help, Kim. Thanks for using Q&A!
-
Yes, these materials were very helpful and informative, thank you!
Another part of my issue was wondering how to handle scraped practitioner duplicates that were already in existence, but I was able to find a couple options on how to handle that in the resources you recommended.
Best!
Kim
-
Hi Kim,
So glad you came here to ask this question.
Yes, it has been standard best practice to ascribe unique categories to each practitioner within a practice, however, things got really wacky with Google's new behavior towards businesses like doctors, dentists and lawyers. Let me link to some resources here that I think are must-read for anyone dealing with this type of business:
http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-duplicates-doctor-dentist-lawyer.html
Note in the above Google's announcement that they will no longer delete duplicate listings for doctors and the advice to mark them as 'permanently closed'. However, also note, that since Linda Buquet wrote the above post, Google changed the 'permanently closed' message so that it reads, "This Places Has Closed or Relocated". So that's a bit different.
Next, read this other post about Linda Buquet's experiment with managing to get a duplicate doctor listing removed:
I recommend you read the initial post and all follow-up posts on the above thread.
These days, because of the issues with exactly this scenario, there is no way I would recommend that a new multi-partner practice set up a listing for each practitioner. I would simply set up a listing for each location and forget about listing the individual partners. Hope the materials I've linked to will help you understand the latest issues with this complex scenario.
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
-
Footer menu links: Header tags or list items?
Hi, I would like to know header tags (h5 or h6) or list items ( ) works better for footer menu links for the best linking structure. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Desk top rankings differ from mobile rankings
Hi there! We are working on clients site for SEO. We have noticed that our clients 'desk top search results' on Google differ from the 'mobile / tablet search results'. For the desktop - the client is in the top 4 results of page one for Google, but for mobile / tablet results they are at the bottom of page one. We converted the clients site to be responsive 6 months ago. We have been through Google webmaster tools and made all suggested alterations. All programming is to a high standard. Competitors all seem to keep their current rankings - whilst our clients seem to drop. Any suggestions what the issue is would be very much appreciated 🙂 Thanks in advance. Phil. . We re-built their website so that it was responsive. We have been But -
Algorithm Updates | | Globalgraphics1 -
Removing an old Google places listing for a newer version?
Hey there, I was wondering whether you could help me out on the following; One of our clients has a Google places listing that we created for their business but it appears to be being blocked - or at least conflicting - with an old listing. As such, Google appears to be showing the old listing with an outdated URL and company name - rather than the new one. Does anyone know how I can go about removing this listing or showing that the newer one is now more relevant? Unfortunately, I don't have the logins for the old places listing. Old listing; https://plus.google.com/105224923085379238289 New listing; https://plus.google.com/b/114641937407677713536/114641937407677713536
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Why am I not getting on Map Listing Results?
Greetings Mozzers, To my knowledge I'm doing everything that is "required" to start showing up on the map results when searching something local, however, we never seem to be on map results (A, B, C, D...etc). We have a Google+ page, submitted to Google Places (received PIN and entered it), optimized address to identical and in high authority map listing directories (GetListed.org), increased citations throughout the web, optimized keywords for categories on Google Places, schema.org HTML markup for address, meta address tags, consistent reviews being written by unique visitors to review sites (Yelp, Google+, etc). Am I missing a major component? Any advice would be great as I feel like I'm hitting many notes that should translate into a map result. Even for keywords that aren't incredibly difficult where we are ranking #1 above map results every time. Thanks and hope all have a great weekend!
Algorithm Updates | | MonsterWeb280 -
AS we using the keyword related to our link but we are not listed in first page of Google search
AS we using the keyword related to our link but we are not listed in first page of Google search, but our competitors using the same keyword , they are listing in first page. how we can short this problem and get into first page on search
Algorithm Updates | | krisanantha0 -
Why is there no compiled list of the different types of search results on Google, and what the content qualifications are to generate those results?
Seems to me that this list should exist out there somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. Am I just not as good of a Googler as I thought I was?
Algorithm Updates | | Draftfcb0 -
Urgent input needed on huge drop in Google
As of today we got huge drops in SERP across all our pages. We can see a drop between 10 to 80% on most of our pages on this domain: http://www.meresverige.dk Some background info: Never bought any links Yes, did optimize the site, but only in fair way, using SEO moz On-Page Optimization. Most pages get an A-grade No cloaking, all pages do look exactly same to visitors and Google Any input on what this could be? We are hugely grateful for any input that might lead us in the correct direction Have a nice day Fredrik
Algorithm Updates | | Resultify0 -
New linkbuilding: If networks are useless, and I need high volume through a 1-man team, what's the best option?
I work for an online retailer, and we have thousands of product pages and our vertical for content is brutal -- half of them are owned by our competitors. Are there any new linkbuilding strategies that can be done through a 1-man team? I'm not talking about bots or traditional link networks. Our current strat revolves around the following: 1. Link prospecting through buzzstream tools and singular contacts 2. Finding bloggers/vloggers, sending product and having them send backlinks to our homepage level with their reviews (slow turnaround, low juice). 3. Syndicating our videos through multiple avenues. 4. Being active on social. We need to gain more authority outside of simple content building. Are there any alternatives to link networks to optimize build outs via a 1-man team? Many thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | eugeneku0