Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. Google places VS position one ranking above the places.

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Google places VS position one ranking above the places.

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    6
    11
    2576
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Bodie
      Bodie Subscriber Banned last edited by

      Hi Guys,

      Will creating a new Google places listing for a business have any effect their current position one spot for their major geo location keyword?

      I.e restaurants perth - say they are ranking no 1 above all the places listings if they set up a places listing would they lose that position and merge with all the other places accounts?

      Or would they have that listing as well as the places listing?

      I have been advised it could be detrimental to set up the places account if this is the case does anyone know any ways around this issue as the business really needs a places page for google maps etc.

      Appreciate some guidance

      Thanks.

      BC

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • itrogers
        itrogers @SparkSEO last edited by

        I have a client where we put the specific local listing page url (example.com/locations/phoenix/location1) in the Google Places URL field. It works out really well as we get the home page ranking organically (depending on the query) and the specific places result locally. Sometimes they are combined and other times they are not, but we are in the mix somewhere almost always.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • SparkSEO
          SparkSEO last edited by

          Curious if anyone of you guys has experience pointing the places listing to a different URL other than the homepage?

          I have read a few articles that stated various different outcomes, some mentioning that it didn't effect their Organic result, but was harder to rank the places URL.  Just curious of findings!

          itrogers 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MiriamEllis
            MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

            Hi Bodie,

            Yes, I think this is playing in the grey area. If the business owner actually wants to make his used and new car dealerships two companies with completely separate legal business names or DBAs, addresses with separate walk-in entrances, phone numbers and websites with completely unique content, then yes, you'd be talking about two different businesses, but that seems like an awful lot of real-world trouble to go to just to get a second Place page, eh? Chances are, a car dealership with both used and new cars is simply a single business with different specialties and should only be running a single website with a single Place/+ Local page.

            What would happen if you went ahead with this plan, anyway, without the company actually being two legally separate entities? Honestly, you might be able to get away with it for awhile. Google is often not super sharp about upholding their policies and iffy stuff can ride for a long time. But...the risk is big. Should Google ever decide that they don't like what they are seeing, they could penalize or remove the listing from the index and if there is any association at all between the 2 listings, they could penalize the whole profile. This isn't a risk I would take for my clients, and for a business model like you're describing, like a car dealership, I would not advise the hypothetical approach you are considering. Rather, I would recommend that the client build the strongest local profile he can for his business and then consider other forms of marketing such as Social Media, Video Marketing, new content, development, etc. to continue to build additional visibility.

            Hope this helps!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Bodie
              Bodie Subscriber Banned @MiriamEllis last edited by

              Think more along the lines of a car dealership with a 'NEW' and "used car' department? 🙂 would i be pushing it ? My question to you is how would the association be made between the pages and businesses if the new site was branded differently and had a new address and a unique non associated domain? The only way i can think is if they were interlinked, but many non associated sites are linked. Is this playing in a grey area? 🙂  Thanks again

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • MiriamEllis
                MiriamEllis Subject Expert @Bodie last edited by

                Hi Bodie,

                My pleasure. Are you stating that you work at a large business that has more than one front entry door for clientele (like a hospital with an emergency room and a separate radiology department?) If so, then you are allowed to create more than one listing for the business under the following Google Places Quality Guideline:

                Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may be listed separately. These departments must be publicly distinct as entities or groups within their parent organization, and ideally will have separate phone numbers and/or customer entrances.

                If this is an accurate description of your business model, then I would simply have a single website with unique landing pages for the different public offices and tie these pages to the distinct Place Pages/+ Local Page for the business. Anything that doesn't really fit the above would not be a good idea.

                I would not recommend associating an identical business name with two different websites and Place Pages if it is really the same business. What Google wants is for you to make a totally realistic representation of your business on the web; not to try to appear like you are larger, more diverse, or different than you really are in real life. I know how important it is to do all you can to gain the broadest visibility, but I believe that all efforts must be founded on an authentic presentation of any business, and this appears to be Google's view, too. Hope this helps!

                Bodie 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Bodie
                  Bodie Subscriber Banned @MiriamEllis last edited by

                  Thanks for your response, would it be deemed black hat to set up a new site specifically for the Google places listing if it had a strong geo location in the URL and was attached to a different address?

                  ie website Hillarysrestaurant.com.au (ie hillarys is the suburb) and i was to register Perthrestaurant.com.au and attach that to a different address as the restaurant takes up 3 blocks ie 6-10 so i run the real website as it always was on 6 and set up the new site as a push site/squeeze page on 10 and use it just for google local?

                  i really hope this makes sense. Thanks again for your help and SEO wisdom! 🙂

                  P.s its not a restaurant im just using this as an example.

                  MiriamEllis 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Laurean
                    Laurean @WhoWuddaThunk last edited by

                    We have the same experience as Cody.  Google Places is like ADDING another listing to the SERP.  From what I understand the Google places, is supposed to rotate around.  But your #1 or #2 spot should stay firm - unless you get knocked off by a competitor!  We have several clients that are in #1, Google Places and then #4 or 5 - so it is possible to take up quite a bit of real estate on a SERP.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • MiriamEllis
                      MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

                      Hi BC,

                      Yes, you can typically expect the organic rank to be subsumed into the Places rank if you create a Google Places/+ Local page for the client. This is a very common outcome and it remains uncommon, though not impossible, for businesses to have more than one results per SERPs page.

                      Bodie 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • WhoWuddaThunk
                        WhoWuddaThunk @itrogers last edited by

                        I work with around 50 companies, and that's typically what I see.  My #1 listing will just get changed to a Places listing, but it will still be in the #1 position.

                        Laurean 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                        • itrogers
                          itrogers last edited by

                          In my experience, I had a client with the positioning like yours. We created the Places account and it just went into the local / maps results. The good news was that the SERP didn't contain any other organic listings at the top. If you have prominent and consistent rankings and are confident in your strategy, then you might not need to create a places account. Just be aware that moving down 1 spot could really be 8 or 9 spots on the real estate of the SERP. Moving down to #2 organically could mean being below the entire local results. You will need to judge the risk / rewards. Hope that helps.

                          WhoWuddaThunk 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • igniterman75

                            Why is this site ranked #1 in Google with such a low DA (is DA not important anymore?)

                            Hi Guys, Would you mind helping me with the below please? I would like to get your view on it and why Google ranks a really new domain name #1 with super low domain authority? Or is Domain Authority useless now in Google? It seems like from the last update that John Mueller said that they do not use Domain Authority so is Moz Domain Authority tool not to take seriously or am I missing something? There is a new rehab in Thailand called https://thebeachrehab.com/ (Domain authority 13)It's ranked #1 in Google.co.th for these phrases: drug rehab thailand but also for addiction rehab thailand. So when checking the backlink profile it got merely 21 backlinks from really low DA sites (and some of those are really spammy or not related). Now there are lots of sites in this industry here which have a lot higher domain authority and have been around for years. The beach rehab is maybe only like 6 months old.  Here are three domains which have been around for many years and have much higher DA and also more relevant content. These are just 3 samples of many others... <cite class="iUh30">https://www.thecabinchiangmai.com (Domain Authority 52)</cite>https://www.hope-rehab-center-thailand.com/ (Domain Authority 40)https://www.dararehab.com (Domain Authority 32) These three sites got lots of high DA backlinks (DA 90++)  from strong media links like time.com, theguardian.com, telegraph.co.uk etc. (especially thecabinchiangmai.com) but the other 2 got lots of solid backlinks from really high DA sites. So when looking at the content, thebeachrehab.com has less content as well. Can anyone have a look and let me know your thoughts why Google picks a brand new site, with DA 13 and little content in the top compared to competition?  I do not see the logic in this? Cheers
                            John

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | igniterman75
                            0
                          • AndrisZigurs

                            What to do with internal spam url's google indexed?

                            I am in SEO for years but never met this problem. I have client who's web page was hacked and there was posted many, hundreds of links, These links has been indexed by google. Actually these links are not in comments but normal external urls's. See picture. What is the best way to remove them? use google disavow tool or just redirect them to some page? The web page is new, but ranks good on google and has domain authority 24. I think that these spam url's improved rankings too 🙂 What would be the best strategy to solve this. Thanks. k9Bviox

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AndrisZigurs
                            0
                          • Jacksons_Fencing

                            Does Google want contact numbers in the meta description?!

                            Reading up it seems like there's complete free reign to enter what you want in the meta description and they are not considered a direct ranking signal However I have added contact numbers to the meta descriptions for around 20 reasonably high ranking pages for my company and it seems to have had a negative effect (taken screen grabs and previous rankings) More strangely when you 'inspect' the page the meta description features the desired number yet when you find the page in the serps the meta description just does not feature the number (page has been cached and the description does not carry on) I'm wondering whether such direct changes are seen as spam and therefore negative to the page?

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jacksons_Fencing
                            1
                          • uworlds

                            Does type of hosting affect SEO rankings?

                            Hello, I was wondering if hosting on shared, versus VPS, versus dedicated ... matter at all in terms of the rankings of Web sites ... given that all other factors would be exactly equal. I know this is a big question with many variables, but mainly I am wondering if, for example, it is more the risk of resource usage which may take a site down if too much traffic and therefore make it un-crawlable if it happens at the moment that a bot is trying to index the site (factoring out the UX of a downed site). Any and all comments are greatly appreciated! Best regards,
                            Mark

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | uworlds
                            0
                          • wlingke

                            How does google know if rich snippet reviews are fake?

                            According to: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/rich-snippets/reviews - all someone has to do is add in some html code and write the review. How does google do any validation on whether these reviews are legitimate or not?

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wlingke
                            0
                          • ClayPotCreative

                            Real Vs. Virtual Directory Question

                            Hi everyone. Thanks in advance for the assistance. We are reformatting the URL structure of our very content rich website (thousands of pages) into a cleaner stovepipe model. So our pages will have a URL structure something like http://oursite.com/topic-name/category-name/subcategory-name/title.html etc. My question is… is there any additional benefit to having the path /topic-name/category-name/subcategory-name/title.html literally exist on our server as a real directory? Our plan was to just use HTACCESS to point that URL to a single script that parses the URL structure and makes the page appropriately. Do search engine spiders know the difference between these two models and prefer one over the other? From our standpoint, managing a single HTACCESS file and a handful of page building scripts would be infinitely easier than a huge, complicated directory structure of real files. And while this makes sense to us, the HTACCESS model wouldn't be considered some kind of black hat scheme, would it? Thank you again for the help and looking forward to your thoughts!

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ClayPotCreative
                            0
                          • jaspercurry

                            One page with multiple sections - unique URL for each section

                            Hi All, This is my first time posting to the Moz community, so forgive me if I make any silly mistakes. A little background: I run a website that for a company that makes custom parts out of specialty materials. One of my strategies is to make high quality content about all areas of these specialty materials to attract potential customers - pretty strait-forward stuff. I have always struggled with how to structure my content; from a usability point of view, I like just having one page for each material, with different subsections covering covering different topical areas. Example: for a special metal material I would have one page with subsections about the mechanical properties, thermal properties, available types, common applications, etc. Basically how Wikipedia organizes its content. I do not have a large amount of content for each section, but as a whole it makes one nice cohesive page for each material. I do use H tags to show the specific sections on the page, but I am wondering if it may be better to have one page dedicated to the specific material properties, one page dedicated to specific applications, and one page dedicated to available types. What are the communities thoughts on this? As a user of the website, I would rather have all of the information on a single, well organized page for each material. But what do SEO best practices have to say about this? My last thought would be to create a hybrid website (I don't know the proper term). Have a look at these examples from Time and Quartz. When you are viewing a article, the URL is unique to that page. However, when you scroll to the bottom of the article, you can keep on scrolling into the next article, with a new unique URL - all without clicking through to another page. I could see this technique being ideal for a good web experience while still allowing me to optimize my content for more specific topics/keywords. If I used this technique with the Canonical tag would I then get the best of both worlds? Let me know your thoughts! Thank you for the help!

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jaspercurry
                            0
                          • kirmeliux

                            Thumbtack Blatantly Violating Google TOS?

                            Hi, We have a business registered on Thumbtack so we receive their newsletters. I'm aware that review sites offering a "badge" or verification logo which links back to your profile is nothing new. But the email I received from Thumbtack is a fairly blatant attempt to game Google for popular keywords. I was just curious on your thoughts about this. I believe it was Overstock who did something like this and got slapped by Google pretty hard for a while. Could Thumbtack be heading down the same path? Image: http://i.imgur.com/FWPnmEP.jpg

                            White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kirmeliux
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.