Bing ranking a weak local branch office site of our 200-unit franchise higher than the brand page - throughout the USA!?
-
We have a brand with a major website at ourbrand.com. I'm using stand-ins for the actual brandname.
The brand is a unique term, has 200 local offices with sites at ourbrand.com/locations/locationname, and is structured with best practices, and has a well built sitemap.xml. The link profile is diverse and solid. There are very few crawl errors and no warnings in Google Webmaster central. Each location has schema.org markup that has been checked with markup validation tools. No matter what tool you use, and how you look at it t's obvious this is the brand site. DA 51/100, PA 59/100.
A rouge franchisee has broken their agreement and made their own site in a city on a different domain name, ourbrandseattle.com. The site is clearly optimized for that city, and has a weak inbound link profile. DA 18/100, PA 21/100. The link profile has low diversity and generally weak. They have no social media activity. They have not linked to ourbrand.com <- my leading theory.
**The problem is that this rogue site is OUT RANKING the brand site all over the USA on Bing. **Even where it makes no sense at all. We are using whitespark.ca to check our ranking remotely in other cities and try to remove the effects of local personalization.
What should we do? What have I missed?
-
Hi Scott,
No offense intended. We all run into problems we don't know how to solve. This is pretty specialized - someone who not only knows Bing really well, but also, whether there are issues with their local algo that could result in a branch outranking a main office. It's the Bing part of this that I think makes the question hardest. I feel like I'm pretty good at Local SEO, but because of Google's dominance in this sphere, I simply don't know enough about Bing to have ready, helpful examples for you. Sorry about that, and I really do hope you can get this sorted out. I'd love to hear what you learn.
-
I used to think of myself as a heavy hitter SEO LOL
I'd welcome any other answers on this, and will try to talk to Bing.
If I find a solution I'll report back.
-
Hi Scott,
I have seen a similar, but not identical, issue reported numerous times in the Google Places Help Forum, in which a branch office is outranking the main headquarters of the business in Google. See threads like this one:
Basically, when this comes up, the advice typically given is that there is no way to force the search engine to choose one location over another, and that the only thing the owner can do is to work on building the authority of the main location in hopes that Google will catch on.
Your situation is different in 3 important ways:
1. You're talking about Bing, not Google.
2. You're dealing with a broken contract and apparently don't have control over the branch office.
3. Your assessment is that the authority of the main office already far surpasses that of the branch office.
Unfortunately, I don't have an easy answer for you here, but I do have a suggestion. I recommend that you try Bing's support chat to see if you can talk to a live person about the issue:
You need to be able to share the actual details of the business - not use stand-ins - of course. Without the real data, no one will be able to assess what is going on, so hopefully, you have the permission of the client to share their info with something like a live chat. I'd be very interested to hear what the rep tells you.
If you don't get anywhere with this, I would recommend hiring a heavy hitting SEO, with whom you can share full details, to help you audit the situation. Someone who is highly experienced with Bing and Local would be my pick, but this may not be easy to find, as Local is so Google-centric, because of Google's dominance.
I hope I've given you at least a starting point here.
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
-
International subdirectory without localized content - best practice / need advice
Hi there, Our site uses a subdirectory for regional and multilingual sites as show below for 200+ countries.
Local Website Optimization | | erinfalwell
EX: /en_US/ All sites have ~the same content & are in English. We have hreflang tags but still have crawl issues. Is there another URL structure you would recommend? Are there any other ways to avoid the duplicate page & crawl budget issues outside of the hreflang tag? Appreciate it!0 -
I have a USA Shopify store and want to create a UK store. Should I use a domain or a sub-domain for the new store?
I'm currently running 2x Shopify Stores (names changed from actual): "coolpants.com" is our UK store "us.coolpants.com" is our USA store However, Google Analytics has shown that most of the traffic to "coolpants.com" comes from the USA, and this market has our biggest growth potential. So we want to switch our domain setup to the below: Make "coolpants.com" our USA store Stop using "us.coolpants.com" and redirect it to "coolpants.com" Set up our UK store as a new domain ("coolpants.co.uk) or subdomain ("uk.coolpants.com") My question is – should I set up the UK store as a domain or a sub-domain? What are the pros and cons of each? Thank you in advance for any help!
Local Website Optimization | | benkapow0 -
Are local business directories worth the effort? Eg. White pages, Yell.com, Local.com?
Hi Guys, Im new to Moz and very keen to do SEO right without upsetting Mr. Google too much. Are local business directories worth the effort? Its a laborious job, but happy to do it, if its effective and won't be considered spammy by Google? Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | Fetseun0 -
Multiple My Business pages affecting local SEO?
Hey Moz! We have a situation with a dentist firm with multiple doctors at the same address. They have two locations for their dental offices, and each of the dentists operate at both offices. The issue: Each doctor insists on having their own by business page for each location and i'm afraid this is hurting their local SEO. We've been tracking keywords by week and we've seen some big fluctuations in ratings and i'm looking into why this is happening. The office in location 1 has it's own Google My Business page and the three dentists have their own my business page set up at the exact same address. The office in location 2 has it's own Google My Business page as well and the three dentists have their own my business page there also. This leads the two addresses of the main offices having multiple My Business pages at the same address competing against eachother since they are all are registered with similar names and specialties. Could this be hurting our local SEO? Thanks! -Z
Local Website Optimization | | zacgarrison_700 -
I have 5 sites each targeting a different service my company offers, should I consolidate to one site or merge to one?
I run a photo booth company and have a site for each service I offer. Are smaller sites that are SEO for each service stronger than just having pages for each service on one mother site?thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | hashtagltd0 -
Problem ranking page with a double name and an "&"
I have a client with a double name and a & like: Jones & Jones. I and using all in one SEO on a Wordpress site. Their home page is not ranking even though I have Jones, Jones & Jones and Jones and Jones listed in the keywords. Interestingly enough other pages where I did not list the home page rank when you do a serach for "Jones & Jones" I have not had this issue with other sites but have never had a name repeated and and & in between... any advice woild be appreciate.. I just signed up for a trial of MOZ...
Local Website Optimization | | ajgar0 -
Why My Site is Ranked for Few Hours on Daily Basis in Google SERPs
We have observed Google is shuffling our ranking on daily basis for our website: www.strokesexhibits.com, which is annoying. Almost on daily basis, in evening hours we are in ranking against almost every keyword for few hours (roughly 6-12 hours) but in the morning hours we are back to 50+ to 100+ positions. This is not happening with our domain only but facing same issue with the Google plus pages and few articles which we have on some high authority sites are behaving in same way. For better understanding, please have a look on following stats (Evening Screenshots were recorded yesterday after 8:00 PM, Morning screenshots were recorded after 9.30 AM - GMT +4 Time Zone). all following results are related with google.ae Keyword: Exhibition Stand Evening: 2 Google plus posts are in ranking + One main website page is ranking. Position 2: http://screencast.com/t/Yf2SLQNRJEm Position 4, 6: http://screencast.com/t/sDs2nShaAGr2 Morning: Google Plus pages disappeared + Different main website page is in ranking in back pages. Position 87: http://screencast.com/t/XT8hCEmOY Keyword: Exhibition stands Evening: 2 Google Plus posts are in ranking + One main website page Position 2,3,6: http://screencast.com/t/kF3PaVtwWe Morning: All above pages disappeared from ranking & new pages appeared in back pages. Position 75: http://screencast.com/t/nMTEWJlT Keyword: Exhibition stand design Evening: 2 Google Plus & one main website page is in ranking Position 4,5: http://screencast.com/t/ENUg4Do4i Position 78: http://screencast.com/t/xf8NeMzH Morning: Above pages disappeared and 2 new pages got ranking in back pages. Position 72, 73: http://screencast.com/t/1VidK4cx Keyword: Exhibition companies in dubai Evening: 2 Google Plus pages are on first page + Home page of website on back pages. Position 4: http://screencast.com/t/F3ljdakI3bU Position 8: http://screencast.com/t/evuDLuuL Position 70: http://screencast.com/t/xQ24Mdm9DV Morning: Home page dropped 11 positions + google plus disappeared Position 81: http://screencast.com/t/FD1IxnqL Keyword: Exhibition stand fabrication: Evening: 2 main website + 2 google plus + 1 second brand site + 1 third party website + 1 youtube link – all related to us are in ranking Position 1,2: http://screencast.com/t/kZACVnUS1yG Position: 4,5,7: http://screencast.com/t/JyAKX2bv66t Position 11,12: http://screencast.com/t/2CdJMMHB8 Morning: One page lost by position 1 + One page disappeared and new page appeared in ranking + google plus disappeared + youtube gained ranking of 2 positions + 3rd party link also gained ranking by 3 positions. Position 2, 4: http://screencast.com/t/JwJfa0Je Position 8, 10: http://screencast.com/t/wHup3X6Isu Keyword: Exhibition stand contractor Evening: 2 Google plus links + One main website link on back pages. Position 4,6: http://screencast.com/t/bMJlI7cco Position 100: http://screencast.com/t/twBOwFbR Morning: Google plus disappeared + main website page still on back pages & gained 2 positions. Position 98: http://screencast.com/t/tMXHmkiQWFE Keyword: Exhibition stand installation Evening: 2 main website + one Google plus is in ranking Position 2,4,5: http://screencast.com/t/GfyXZn19 Morning: All 3 pages disappeared & new single page is in ranking Position 3: http://screencast.com/t/i0fdgZvVZwUk Any Suggestion???
Local Website Optimization | | strokesinteriors0 -
Local SEO + Best Practice for locations
Hi All, Based on a hypothetical scenario, lets say you are a plumber. You live and operate within Chelsea in London. You have established a Google places profile and incorporated schema data to tell Google your fixed place location. In addition you operate in several nearby towns with no fixed location presence. i.e Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham. I create a feature rich page on 'How to find a quality plumber'. Within the page I incorporate the following description: blah blah, as a quality plumber serving the community of Chelsea, we also offer our services to nearby towns of Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham. I create hyperlinks for the towns (Brentford, Bromley, Catford, Cheswick and Tottenham) that allow the user see in details a full list of services, operation hours, etc. Naturally all towns will have there own unique content (no duplication). Question
Local Website Optimization | | Mark_Ch
Is the above scenario the correct way to provide local seo or is this approach considered spammy to Google? Thanks Mark0