How do you handle local SEO when a business has had multiple names?

[AdrienOLeary]

Hi,

Here is a quite simple question... that comes from a real life example.

When a local business, with one phone number and one business location, has been promoting itself with up to 4 different names over the years. How do you handle local SEO?

Do you try to update all pages (and directories) on the Web to the new name? Do you keep the existing records as they are and find some ways to show Google - and people - that those are all the same business?

Thanks,

Adrien O'Leary

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Adrien,

There are no two ways about this, in my opinion: consistency is all. Telling Google that a single phone number relates to 4 different business names will almost certainly kill the business' chance of earning good rankings because merged and duplicate pages will sap all the strength of the profile. Tell the client that they need to pick a single name and go with it and that citation cleanup will be critical to you getting them in the clear with Google.

In your further discussion with Matt, you ask:

Yet I wanted to discuss some avenues to give a business all chances to indicate to the engines - and to people - that some business names used in the past belong to them.

The only way I would recommend doing this would be on the website, in non-indexable text (such as image text). If you put it in markup, Google will index it, thus confusing their ability to understand and trust the NAP of the business.

So, if it's essential to have Bob's Plumbing (formerly known as Bob's Kitchen Repair and Bob The Bathroom Guy) explained someplace, put it somewhere on the website in non-indexable text, but not any place else and not in any format that can be crawled.

That would be my best advice.

Funny thing about Google....in the real world, businesses do have situations like the one your client has, but Google's system is not designed to handle this type of complexity. They want 1 name, 1 address and 1 phone number. Anything else is too convoluted for them.

[AdrienOLeary]

Matt, I appreciate the feedback and I'll keep you posted if we were to experiment with the options I've mentioned here... and I'm pretty sure that we will end up doing it the "right" way... even if the client is afraid to be penalized for updating her listings (with old names that were keyword rich) to her new brand name that doesn't contain any keyword. Time will tell!

[MattAntonino]

I'm not sure how "Branchof" schema will work on a business in the same location - never actually tried that.  I understand why you would want to and there are things to look at, but I think ultimately, there are two solutions:  the best and the possible.  We know what the "best" is - I guess to me, anything else is not going to be the best answer, which makes it a band aid on a problem that will still need to be solved later.

If you do branchof and brand schema, I'd love to know how that works out. It's an interesting idea for businesses in the same location but I think the problem will be them not actually being a "branch" will work against you.  Instead of having 3 "branchof" coming into the main domain, you'll have one - from the same location.  I'm not sure how sophisticated Google's schema reading will be for a "trick" like that but yeah, definitely interested.

[AdrienOLeary]

Matt, I appreciate your answer... and I do agree with it 100%. Yet I wanted to discuss some avenues to give a business all chances to indicate to the engines - and to people - that some business names used in the past belong to them. An idea was to specify the old names as additional fields on Google Places. A different one was to use the branchOf or the brand attributes with microformats from schema.org - on the business site - to present old names as brands or subsidiaries. I'm curious. What would be your take on those points?

[MattAntonino]

We've seen that the most important thing in Local is consistency.  That said, I'd take the longer but more profitable road.  Update everything - do searches on the old name, searches on the phone number, searches on the biz address, etc. just to find everything you can possibly change.  I'm sure there are ways around it but realistically, doing the work will be the best in the end.