Places page help
-
Hi I was hoping somebody could provide me with some help regarding places pages.
If I search 'recruitment agencies Chester' I get this result https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=recruitment+agencies+chester&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=cr&ei=LsBTUr6rJ8Sw0wXt74CQAg
I am confused as to why certain sites are ranking higher than others for example:
The site with the a) ranking has no reviews and the place page doesn't seem particularly optimised.
The site ranked at c) has 2 bad reviews
The site ranked at g) seems to have a much more optimised places page yet ranks below the other sites.
Is this just a strange batch of results or can somebody provide me with more information/ help? I don't understand the ranking system at the moment.
Thanks for any help you might be able to offer!
-
Good point, Linda! It's listed as the seventh most-influential factor in the Local Search Ranking Factors 2013, but that doesn't explain what you have, regarding organic factors and the cream at the top:)
-
Yes, Miriam is right. Lots of factors in the mix.
But what controls the TOP of the 7 pack, usually the top 3 - 4 (depends on market) is ORGANIC ranking factors. So when you see a listing sitting at A that's unclaimed and has no reviews, may not even have many citations, but it's the strength of the site that put it on top - not Place page ranking factors.
-
Hi OnlineChester,
Ocelot has smartly pointed out the role of citations in the results. This is quite true, but there are several hundred other factors in Google's Local algo, so if you want to be able to diagnose the competition, you need to take many, many things into account. I recommend that you study the recent Local Search Ranking Factors 2013.
For example, the top ten factors deemed most influential are:
1. Proper category associations
2. Physical address in city of search
3. Consistency of structured citations
4. Quality/authority of structured citations
5. HTML NAP matching place page NAP
6. Quantity of structured citations
7. Domain authority of website
8. Individually owner-verified Local+ page
9. City/state in Places landing page title
10. Proximity of address to centroid
So, these are just a few to get started on. Hopefully by studying the whole report I've linked to, you will be able to begin assessing your competition. There are, of course, some instances in which spam gets into Google's local pack of results, meaning that legit businesses are being outranked by spam, but typically, what you see in the pack is based on a large number of factors, and the best thing you can do is to excel in as many of these areas as possible yourself. Hope this helps!
-
Without looking into too much detail, you also need to factor in that the listings might have more external citations which are causing them to rank higher in the results, the landing URL in Google's opinion is a better match right down to the location of the business in the city.
Getting more external citations and completing your listing 100% will help. Ensuring that the naming and address structure is the same across all external citations Yell, Yelp, Scoot etc.
On your URL on your Google places listing ensure that it contains the address, local telephone number of the business. This does not always need to be the homepage especially if you have multiple locations.
Hope this helps
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
-
Identical pages with different URL's
Hi All,I have a page with the titleFunny charactersanother page as Funny Characters/VideosAlmost all data is same in both URL's except the videos page will have 20+ video thumbnailsHow can i set Google not to index the images only on this page and consider both pages as identical and not create any issues but yet scan the videos.Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | jomin740 -
URL has on Page Grade "A" - Now What?
Nevermind, got some good ideas and i'll look into it and report back. thanks anyway
Image & Video Optimization | | Prime850 -
Google Places rankings
Is there a way to see what keywords I rank for in Google Places?
Image & Video Optimization | | echo11 -
How to delete Google Places Negative Reviews?
Hi Friend, I have a question and hope you can help me answer. What is the best way to get rid of negative reviews or get the rating higher. Is it possible to get bad reviews removed from Google places? Quality Excellent: 3 Quality Good: 1 Quality Poor to fair: 4 Score Overall 10 out of 30: Poor to fair. Thanks in advance. KLLC
Image & Video Optimization | | KLLC0 -
Google Places: "this place is permanently closed" what next?
All, I'm working on a duplicate Google places listing issue. One of the listings is accurate, verified and has been reviewed by quite a few customers. However, we have a problem with an old address that still shows up in Google maps and seems to be the cause of poor performance for the accurate listing. The old address listing was deleted but may not have been removed using best practices based on what I've been able to read here at SEO Moz. The old address listing has been flagged by Google with a notation: “this place is permanently closed.” My question is what happens next? Do listings that have been flagged as permanently closed eventually drop out of the search results Or do I need to take additional action? It appears that once a listing has been flagged as permanently close you can no longer report a problem so that route seems to be unavailable.
Image & Video Optimization | | JSOC0 -
Will Google Places put ranking weight on google reviews instead of 3rd party now?
WIth the visual update to Google Places over the past 2 days do you think that Google reviews will become a higher ranking factor as compared to 3rd party reviews. The research I have done shows that 3rd party reviews seem to correlate better with higher rankings..Any thoughts on what might be coming down the road?
Image & Video Optimization | | NiftyMarketing0 -
Google Places Name Change - Duplicate Listings.
Need input on a Google Places change to avoid duplicate listing/phone number issue for a name change. Here is a summary: Company A has a Places listing and ranks week for key local terms. Company A has become a franchise and has a completely new name but same address. A New Franchise listing was created. It has same location but a different telephone (tracking) number. Both listings generally appear in Google Places but Company A (older listing) come up first. For branding purposes I would ideally like to eliminate (or edit) Company A listing and optimize new Franchise listing. We will need to eliminate the tracking phone number and add the old “Company A” phone number to the new Franchise listing. What is the best procedure to delete the Company A listing? I have access to both listings. Do I: -Strip Company A listing of most info…wait and then delete? Do I delete from my account or delete in total? -Just change the name of the “old” Company name to the new franchise name and delete the new franchise listing? An if so, in what order? -or do I just delete the old listing right away and edit the new franchise listing right away? -When do I add the old (and real phone number) to the new franchise listing? This same scenario has played out in other locations with disastrous results. Appears that Google looks at them as duplicate listings if the old Company name is still active and demotes both listings. Trying to avoid that problem that has been created by other companies. -Would adding Google Boost to the surviving listing help? Any input appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | AgileInt0 -
Google Place pages and regular listings in search results
I'm trying to clarify something about search results which contain local listings. Here is the search string for Google that will give you the same results that I am seeing - http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=letting agents glasgow&pws=0 Of the results that are returned, some of them have data which seems to be related to their Google Place page but the "title" links directly to their website. What I wanted to know is, "Is it their actual website that has given them those rankings" or "Are they listed where they are because of a well optimized and ranked Places page?
Image & Video Optimization | | XSMedia0