How do you know if you are listed in google+ local?
-
OK This Google+ local and Google places merge is confusing.
My first question is how do you know if your company is listed in Google+ local?
I've done a search in Google Plus (logged in with another gmail account) but couldn't find my company on the results.
Second question is that I am also not able to be found in maps.google.com, is this related?
Thanks
-
Sounds good, Donovan. Just be sure the client meets all three of those points on my list of must haves:
-
A physical street address (not a mailing address, PO box, virtual office or shared address)
-
A local area code phone number (not a toll free number, call tracking number or shared number)
-
Face-to-face transactions with customers.
Wishing you tons of good luck!
-
-
Good points. I will work on this next week and if/when a conclusion is reached, I'll update this thread.
-
Hi Donovan,
I would say that, typically, if you can't find a business in maps.google.com via the business name+ city search, it's likely that a Place Page/Google+ Local page doesn't exist, but I would not say that this is utterly sure. If you know there is an active Place Page and it isn't showing up, I would suspect a penalty of some kind. Regarding the address, just to clarify, this must be a physical street location, not just a mailing address. On the contact page in question, I believe I saw the address labeled as a 'mailing address', which made me question whether this is a physical address or not.
Hope this helps.
-
Miriam, thanks for the clarification. So the bottom line is that if you can't find the company in Google maps then the G+ Local page is not created/claimed yet.?
What if client has Google places and the listing there is listed as active?
Also the physical mailing address is under the Contact page so shouldn't be an issue.
Thanks
-
Hi Donovan,
Got your PM. What you linked to is not a Google+ Local page. It's just a Google+ page. I visited the company's website and question their eligibility for inclusion in Google's local index. There is no physical street address and the business looks virtual (does not do face-to-face business with clients). What can you tell me about this.
Also, referring back to your original question, if you attempted to merge a Google+ Local page with a Google+ Business page, that can cause problems. Additionally, if you attempted to create a Google+ Local page for a non-qualifying business, Google may have deleted it. In order to qualify for Local inclusion, a business must have
-
A physical street address (not a mailing address, PO box, virtual office or shared address)
-
A local area code phone number (not a toll free number, call tracking number or shared number)
-
Face-to-face transactions with customers.
What I see on your Google+ page you PMd me is a toll free number and no address. I see a mailing address on the company's website but no physical address. This is what is making me question whether this business qualifies as Local in Google's point of view.
-
-
Thanks Miriam. I was only given a chance to see that the status is active so unfortunately I don't have access to the account. I can get it but given the state of the issue now, I wouldn't want to muddy up the waters until I am sure. Can I PM you the listing?
-
Hi Donovan,
I received your PM and see you asked this question here as well. If you know a listing was created and claimed and it isn't showing up, I would suspect a penalty, suspension or deletion of the listing. Are you in control of the account? Can you see a listing in the Places dashboard? If so, what is the status of it? Active, pending, suspended, needs action? An issue like this can be tough to diagnose without actually seeing the listing/knowing what to look for.
Kyle's advice is correct regarding doing a business name+ city search in maps.google.com. That's typically a good way to discover if a listing exists, but if you're working on this client's Local SEO, you need access to their Google account so you can see what's going on in the dash.
-
Kyle, thanks again but what if the company is already claimed and at one point earlier this year it was showing up?
-
If the company is not showing within the search listing then now is your opportunity to create them. I've pasted the URL above where you can sign up and claim your business listings within Google. Once you've registered you can go about claiming your business listings with Google, specifying the location and contact information.
K
-
Thanks Donovan, as stated in question 2, the company is not showing in maps either. Any other thoughts here?
-
Hi Donovan,
There is a really quick way of checking your presence on Google+ Local. Go to Google Maps, type in your brand name and either a town or postcode where your business is located and search. If you're listing pops up in the search result click on the icon on the map and click on "more info" on the listing pop-up. You should then go through to your local listing's Google+ page.
If you're not present (or if you are and you don't own the listings) you should sign up for an account here: http://www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness/ and claim your business listings.
Hope that helps,
K
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
-
How to Merge or Add YouTube account to Google Account
Hello Everyone. We have a YouTube account that has been around for many years. We also have a separate google account that we use for webmaster/analytics/adwords/mybusiness etc... We just noticed that our YouTube account is not linked to this same account that the rest of our business uses for all other Google services. Is there any way to add our existing YouTube account to our existing Google Account? We don't want to re-upload everything onto a new channel as we'd like to preserve the age of the videos plus the views and comments. Anyone know how to accomplish what I have in mind? Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | Prime850 -
Tips for improving google places page
link here When I started working on this page he had multiple incorrect listings. I removed the incorrect ones and created this page. It has been confirmed via postcard and up for several months now. I have the profile filled out to 100% completion. Yet it does not show up very high in local map results. A ton of the business that do show up higher have profiles that are incomplete. Many of them show their address when they do not serve customers at their location. So it is a bit aggravating. Any suggestions to make this profile rank higher? I have been creating more citations through whitespark and working on the actual site itself.
Image & Video Optimization | | Atomicx0 -
Local SEO NAP issue
Hello, All of my citations addresses have the street address 913 S. Latah Street except there are other businesses in this building with the same address. Should I have included "Room H"? Also, is "S." different than "South"? Is "St." different than Street? Looking for correct consistent citations.
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Google Places - Bulk Upload Solution
Hi we have a client who currently has over 50 stores in the country (Australia). Some of these stores already have a Google Plus Local Pages and manage them individually. Most of them have reviews, and images. The corporate office wants to place all these stores under one bulk account to bring consistency with the brand and it's image. Now this presents a issue. From our research we have 3 options: 1. Un-verify the listings in each of the accounts and once this has been done, claim them individually in the account you want to manage them under. 2. Delete the listings from Maps and then recreate them under the bulk feed in account. This will allow you to manage them with the rest of your listings more efficiently, however if the stores have any reviews these may be lost. 3. Create new listings and leave the other ones and these should get merged, the issue here is the data could be incorrect and it could cause some duplication. Our goal is to transfer the listings to a single bulk account without losing the - reviews, and images.Or avoiding new problems such as duplicate listing or the listing gets somehow deleted for weeks during the process, causing massive frustration with all the stakeholders involved. I think our best bet is (1) to get the stores to individually unverify their account. However this may risk the lost of reviews and images. Plus it will be highly unlikely that the store owners will follow through or like doing this, and would be a painful long communication process which may take 2+ months. Are they any suggestions on how to best approach this situation? Thanks, Matt Carter
Image & Video Optimization | | Mattcarter080 -
Google Places Verification
Sometimes you can verify and claim a Google Places listing via phone, other times they will only send a post card. ANy reason why? Is it lack of trust to verify via phone or old dulpicate listings? Post card is just so unreliable. ANy way to "force" a phone verification?
Image & Video Optimization | | Reportcard0 -
Setting Up Localized City Pages and Duplicate Content issues
We are setting up landing pages on our site that will cater to specific cities, in an effort to be more relevant to the users in those cities and also capture more localized traffic. These regional pages will each have a unique paragraph at the top, but below that is a sentence or two about each product line that would be difficult to rewrite with quality more than 10 - 15 times. Would the paragraph at the top of the page be enough unique content (about 4-5 sentences)? Obviously the duplicate content wouldn't be to my advantage, but is it really necessary to rewrite the other sentences about the product lines? What's the most efficient method to complete this project in a whitehat fashion?
Image & Video Optimization | | InetAll0 -
Google Local Result - wrong decription
A client's description in their Google Places result is incorrect. It looks as though it may have been cached several months ago with incorrect data. Note: By description I am referring to the text that appears directly under the URL and directly above the "places page" link on a results page, not the local listing "description". Any suggestions as to how this can be fixed? All the information on their local page is correct. The website's meta-description is correct. The organic results listing has the correct description. Any tips would be awesome. Thanks,
Image & Video Optimization | | OptioPublishing
Jason0 -
Rejected Yahoo! Local Listing Submissions
I'm working for a nationwide agency that has local agents scattered throughout the nation. I manually inputted each agent's listing and over half of them were rejected. I'm trying to find the common denominators among those that were approved and those that were rejected, but I can't find any. Does anyone know a way to get all of these locations approved?
Image & Video Optimization | | Caitlin.Adria0