Does google places mind listing cities on the home page
-
Hello,
A site in our industry is listing a bunch of cities on their home page and ranking for them. Like
"Our dog training facility provides services to dogs in city1,city2,city3,city4,city5,city6 state"
where the cities and states are relatively in their area.
It's working organically, will this confuse google places?
Thanks!
-
My pleasure, Bob!
-
Awesome Miriam, thank you!
-
Hi Bob,
This is an interesting question, in light of a recent update to the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Here is a link: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66358.
And here is the text of the update: ------------------------------------
Keyword stuffing
"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context. Examples of keyword stuffing include:
Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example: We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.
Note the second point on that list. Now, in my opinion, what Google is going after with that guideline is a practice I encounter on many local sites wherein someone posts a lists of cities (often in the footer) like this:
Auburn, Audubon, Arrington, Burnside, Camden, Cordell, Craton, Douglas, Douglas Pines, Farmington, Golden, Graham, Hyden, Isleton, Jonesy, Killey, Landow, Mongtomery, Noel Hill, etc.
You see this all the time. Sometimes the city names link to thin content, duplicate pages, and sometimes they don't link anywhere at all. It appears, from the guidelines, that Google does not like this practice.
However, my gut feeling is that Google will view this example differently:
Our dog trainers will come to your home in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, Oakland and San Rafael for gentle canine behavioral training. We schedule appointments that are convenient for you, as you need to be present during each training session.
The difference here is that a short list of a few target cities has been incorporated into a paragraph of text in a natural manner. If, however, the business serves a huge list of cities, like the sample cited above, I would not list that in a block anywhere on the site. Rather, I would encourage the client to begin developing unique, strong pages of content, one by one, for each city, perhaps documenting a training session of a cute dog in a given city on each page. I would then work these into a menu tab called, "Where We Serve," or something along those lines. It's very important to avoid letting this approach turn into a weak effort resulting in duplicate content pages that mimic one another, only swapping out city names. This is a task that should be seen as an opportunity to produce some of the best copy on the website.
Now, all this being said, there are still tons of sites out there with blocks of city names linking to thin, duplicate content that are managing to pull consistent high organic rankings. For clients, this can be a temptation to imitate what a competitor like this is doing. This is where you can help by letting the client know that making a better effort than their competitor has may provide protection from future penalties, should a Google update target certain practices, or should Google turn an eye of heightened scrutiny on the client's industry. With Google, an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure!
Hope this helps, Bob!
-
if it is a legitimate reason that you have to list more than one city. For instance they're not cities but actually just towns? That is fine you can get away with that just fine in fact you can tell them you walk dogs and every city that you legitimately do make sure that you sign up with Google places and link it to that account it will help legitimize any doubts Google may have.
Respectfully,
Thomas
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
-
Why is my image Alt Text showing up under my URL and title on the Google results page?
I just realized this happened 😞 I optimized this page over a week ago. I changed out the old image on the page, along with the Alt Text. Now I see this when I do a search for it. No Beuno. Can some one please tell me how I get rid of the alt text in the result. many many thanks in advance. http://thumannagency.com/business-insurance/contractors-insurance Contractors Liability, Work Comp Insurance in Dallas, Texas ... <cite class="_Rm">thumannagency.com/business-insurance/contractors-insurance</cite>Your page is not mobile-friendly.Dallas, Texas Contractors Insurance. Contractors Insurance Quote. General Contractor working on a roof in Texas. Thumann Agency specializes in providing ...
Image & Video Optimization | | MissThumann0 -
Internal pages targeted for local keywords
Hello, Simple question: how do you target local SEO with internal pages, where the home page may or may not be local?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Can SEO companies be listed on Google Local, Bing Local, and Yahoo Local?
Can anyone confirm if SEO companies can be listed in the local results for Google, Yahoo, and Bing? I'm asking because when you search for most local terms, it will return their local listings. However, that doesn't appear to be the case when searching for SEO or marketing services - or at least none show up when searching from Houston and I'm pretty sure we have quite a few SEO companies here 😉
Image & Video Optimization | | ChaseCameron0 -
Google categories for local limousine service
I manage the Google places page for a SAB (local limousine company). The question is, should I add "taxi" and "airport shuttle service" as categories? I have listed only "limousine" and "car service' for now and I want to play it safe although those 2 are related to limo service. Sometimes people refer to limo service as "taxi service" or they are inquiring about prices for shuttle service to the airport and they end up booking the service quite often. Does Google look to our website to find these words in the content? Google Analytics show lots of people are finding us through those two keywords as well although you cannot find the word “taxi" on our website. The interesting thing is that when searching for "taxi + my zip code" the company shows up 4th on maps results and when searching for "shuttle service + my zip code”, the company shows up 2nd on local results and also 2nd in organic results. Is this enough to make me add these 2 categories? Second question is about the area served, does it make a difference (in rankings) if I choose “Distance from one location"over"List of areas served"? What happens is the red pin would be in a different location. If I choose "Distance from one location" the pin would be right in the center of the city (which I think it shouldn't matter anymore that much since the proximity to the centroid is not a ranking factor anymore). If “list of area” served is selected, (the city name will be chosen) then the pin would be about 5 miles West of the city center. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thank you!
Image & Video Optimization | | echo10 -
Local Listings
I use getlisted.org as my local listing guideline. For some of the local listings you can "upgrade" the listing for a price instead of doing just the basic free listing. I was wondering do people pay for the listing and is it worth it? Are some of them better than others to get an upgraded listing? Thanks for the help!
Image & Video Optimization | | ClickIt0 -
Google Place Result taking over Organic Search Result
Hey there, One of our client contacted as stating that their Google ranking dropped. It was originally listed No.2 on the organic search result, but now it shows up only as Google Place instead, and the ranking is lower than before. Apparently it happens in Japan quite often nowadays, does it happen in your country too? Especially on Google.com? Is it becoming a trend?
Image & Video Optimization | | YukiTokuda0 -
Google Shopping
i am searching a tool which shows me the price ranking of my products in google shopping. that means when i type in a product which i sell in google shopping on which place is my ranking for this product. google has a free api to read this out but i just cant find a service that shows my ranking.
Image & Video Optimization | | droelfzwuenf0 -
Unique content for local pages
Hi, working on a website of a retailer who has about 100 shops accross the country and every shop has a page on the corporate website. Some questions about content on these pages: is it ok to add links to the brands they sell in those shops on every business-page? It's a link to the product listing they sell of that brand I wrote a generic text about the business where I can replace city, street it's located, ... Is it ok to use that kind of text on the local business pages? anybody some ideas I can write about on those loca business pages?
Image & Video Optimization | | nvs.nim0