Nitpicky NAPS Local Question
-
I'm about to setup all our NAPS for our Tampa office with Moz Local, and I'm curious about one small thing: suite vs ste? I have read that what matters most is consistency, but since I haven't set it up yet, if anyone had any experience with full names being written out doing better/worse than abbreviations?
Thanks,
Ruben
-
Hi Ruben,
I hope you'll just love Moz Local!Yep, it looks like that # thing is everywhere. When, exactly, this happened, I did not notice.
-
Miriam!
Funny you mentioned that last part. When deciding what to do earlier, I did a search and saw the same thing. Of all the local results, only one had suite in them. The others all had the # instead, so I figured I would just change everything to match that.
Thanks everyone!
Ruben
P.S. Excited to get start with Moz Local!
-
Hi Ruben,
Suite vs. Ste. does not matter. Nor does Ave. vs. Avenue, St. vs Street, etc. What needs to be consistent is the numbers and spelling of your street address, but abbreviations like the above do not matter.
Interestingly, it just came to my attention this morning that Google appears to have made a recent change in how they are displaying second line data. Instead of suite or unit, everything seems to have been replaced by the # sign. Go do some searches and see if you see this, too. A little change!
-
Thanks for the response. One quick follow-up, when you said you "would write your address as completely as possible" are you talking about writing out the standard abbreviations, (blvd, st, e, w) as well, or just the ones that aren't super common like "ste" in this case?
I really appreciate the insight and your time.
Thanks again,
Ruben
-
There's a couple of things at play here. First off, there's a principle I hold which is "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right". Now abbreviations aren't wrong but they're inferior to the full word. So even if there's no penalty for doing so, I would write it all out. You're talking 2 more letters to remove any ambiguity in this case. I would write your address as completely as possible.
Second is that Google is likely to normalize the address anyways. I've noticed more and more places that do that. There's a growing number of APIs that can do that for you as well. If Google isn't normalizing them now, expect it to happen in the future.
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
-
Google Local Changes Randomly & Our Site Keeps Dropping Off Search
I work for a university where we have 2 law schools. We have our one school on the other side of the state that has been around for a very long time, and then a newer school that is right on our main campus that has been around for about 5 - 10 years now. The newer of the 2 schools is having so much trouble being able to claim the name of the school in google search. If you type in the name of the school the other school (the one that has been around longer) was coming up in the google local on the right of the screen and their web URL was never showing up in search. This is a huge problem because the accreditations of the 2 schools are different, and students are showing up at the wrong school for their interviews. Search will only show a domain name that used to be owned by the older school but now gives information for both of the schools. So it'll show up in search results, but only under that other domain and not their own domain that has their name in the domain name. This school has an updated google mybusiness listing, and a google+ page with the correct listing. I've added some schema data around the business address on their site and JSON for the google+ page, and have re-indexed their sitemap a few times after some changes have been made and we are using their name more in the site. This fixed everything for a short while and we were getting the appropriate google local listing and their site was appearing in search results above the site that advertised both schools. Now, after about 3 months, it has reverted. I had the older school showing up in the google local, and the site that advertises both schools is the ONLY domain appearing. I've re-indexed the site after finding out that Drupal's timestamps that they automatically add to sitemaps aren't optimized for how google reads it. This has gotten the local listing back, but I still have the wrong domain appearing, it is the one advertises both schools instead of the domain that has this school's information. I don't mind that the one advertising both shows up, but if a user is searching for that particular school I would really like to get that domain to appear first above the one advertising both schools and the older school. Right now the new school isn't even in search results except for being under the site that advertises both. I wasn't sure if this was something that Moz Local could help me fix by adding the listing across the web, or if there is something else on the sites I can be doing to help them solidify their name in google search/local. Also - is this subdomain that is advertising both of them hurting them or help them? I was thinking about taking that domain down to one page that acts as a direction source to the 2 domains rather than having a ton of information and keywords that take over the results for their name since that domain is older (and used to be associated with the old school only before the new school was built) Thank you for any advice on this issue as I'm still pretty new to SEO and to the university. Thanks again!
Local Listings | | amaray4030 -
Local SEO Issue or Penguin? Or both?
Hey folks I have a fairly complicated SEO issue we have been looking at for a few years now. There are two parts to this problem so would be interested to get the input of the community here and any experienced in Penguin and Local SEO issues. I am going to have to change the names to protect the innocent a bit here as some of the issue relates to a competitor and a shared address. History My client originally worked for company A which we will call Events R us. He then set up on his own at a new address and lets call his company Fantastic Events. EventsRus never had a good website or SEO Fantastic Events set up a great website and really focused on adding tons of relevant content for all the myriad event options available and subsequently did really well. This is a few years back and they were also doing some article marketing on sites like ezinearticles.com to build links (1). As time went on they did get a bit carried away with these low quality links and were buying $5 spun content articles and other low quality links. They ranked really well for a few key terms. There was a suspected local SEO issue as fantastic events used the same office as their fathers business called fantastic finance and the citations / phone number issues etc all had to be cleared up (2). Fantastic Events and Events R Us remained friends and over time Fantastic Events moved to the same farm address as Events R Us so they could offer a wider range of services based on the farm (and ran by fantastic events) and to some extent run away from the address confusion with the same office and very similar name to the other fantastic finance business. Events R Us wanted some of the Fantastic Events success and built a new website and largely copied the website of Fantastic Events - at times even lifting entire pages of content but certainly mirroring the structure of the site. Fantastic Events tussled with them for a few years over this and over time they updated the content but the structure and services and address all pretty much mirrored what was offered on the Fantastic Events site. (3) Two companies - same address (it's a farm so whilst there are different barns I believe Google can only get as far as the farm gate so same address to all intents and purposes. Same services give or take. Events R Us was the older company overall by several years and was at the farm address many years longer than Fantastic Events (4). Fantastic Events starts running a blog and adding regular, useful event orientated content. The first true team building blog out there as far as we could tell and traffic tripled over a six month period. Penguin hits and Fantastic Events loses a lot of traction - this gets worse with Penguin 2.0. Both the homepage and the evening events page lose visibility and traction. The owner gives up on the blog to a large degree. Subsequent clean up happens and is rigorous - all bad links are pretty much removed and the remaining elements are disavowed. (90% of it is actually gone by now). Penguin 3.0 comes and no recovery at all. Nothing. If anything it gets worse and the once strong blog is now losing traction. Events R Us starts to do really well in search for exactly the same terms that Fantastic Events used to do well for. In particular one page ranks for exactly the same keywords and in exactly the same position (#1) as what was believed to be the primary traffic driver on the Fantastic Events site. It is almost like they exchanged positions and Events R Us went from nowhere to a strong footing with some national and local keywords and Fantastic Events fell from grace. A new website is built. All content is refreshed and bought up to date. Some light investment back in the blog. Some light link building is done around digital PR and infographics. Some initial movement in the right direction but overall this did not move the dial. Certain pages on the site that used to rank are nowhere - looks very much like a page level / keyword level penguin penalty. These same pages rank great, often first on the competitor site (an exchange of positions to some extent). Advice from myself and other esteemed consultants was to clean up, build some good links and wait for Penguin 4.0 to remove that eventuality. Also that the address issue could be causing some local SEO issue where Google believes the two businesses are one and has somehow merged the two with some local SEO filter or some such (same business with multiple websites at same address). Penguin 4.0 comes along and no improvements. Events R us sit pretty. Feeling is that the local issue must play a part here now that Penguin should be eliminated due to the extensive link clean up etc and there must now be some action to resolve this address / local issue. Issues low quality links - but cleaned up 100% now. same business name and address as fathers business initially older business copied the structure and content of newer business moved to same address as older more established business with very similar content older business now seems to have taken all the exact keywords and positions the newer business used to occupy Penguin 4.0 and no resolution. Local SEO issue seemingly remains Summary So we are left in a difficult position. The business does not want to move. But if there is some filtering or merging going on here then how can we get around this? The client is likely collateral damage to an algorithmic component designed to stop single businesses having multiple websites. I know there are reports of this happening but I have never seen such a thing for an innocent business like this but the nature of the address (two separate barns on a gated farm) and the history and similarities between the businesses makes this difficult. Things are somewhat desperate though - a move has to be made now. Even if that is a physical one. The client has considered a virtual address to take that variable out the picture but I have advised caution. I am even cautious about a change in physical address. Google has a long memory. If such a move was made at considerable expense would it help or would the other business retain Is the best option a new start? New brand, address, website, services etc - cut all ties with the historic Fantastic Events brand and by association the Events R Us brand. This is not a recommendation I can quickly or easily make so would be really interested to hear the feedback on anyone who has come across such a multi faceted and complex issue before. This is a tough one. We know what we are doing on the local front. We know what we are doing on the Penguin front. We know how to build links and authority. We are doing this work of the clock to help a long term friend / client get back to where they really deserve to be. The history is not spotty clean but the good work and effort far outway a short spell building dodgy links several years ago now. As an SEO consultant I don't want to advise for the company to rebrand and move offices at considerable expense but whilst I have a theoretical understanding of the issue how can we prove it and be sure this is the best possible advice? Thanks folks - hope this at least makes for interesting reading. This is something of an edge case. A good business likely caught up in a filter designed to stop abuse. Cheers
Local Listings | | Marcus_Miller
Marcus1 -
What the best way is to find keywords for my local website
I'm wondering if there are any high keywords I might be missing out on and so I'm wondering what the best way to find keywords for my local niche and also if there's a way to find out who is currently performing best for those local keywords? Thanks
Local Listings | | michaelmouse2 -
A question for a real citation building PRO (I am totally lost on this one) Thank you for ANY help!
Quick Q for your (local) SEO gurus. I have a client who has bought a number of local companies. (advertising, printing, graphic design, vehicle wraps) to compliment his screen printing, embroidery, etc business. ALL of these companies run out of the SAME address. What makes it even harder is he wants to continue operating them as separate companies. Fortunately, he is OK with using different phone numbers for each business but on the website (we are building for him) ALL the companies are represented like it is all one big happy company. How the H@#$ do I build citations for this business! 🙂 ??? THANK YOU FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS!! If I use the one 'parent' company building citations is a challenge bcs they do so MANY things in one location. If I try and build citations for 5 companies w the same address - that can't be a good idea either. If the plan is to eventually fold all these companies into the one parent company *(waiting to hear back on that) I would think the BEST advice would be to use the ONE phone number and address and just shoot for a general 'marketing' category. Thanks for any thoughts!! Matthew Saw Web Marketing Quick Q for your (local) SEO gurus smarter than myself. I have a client who has bought a number of local companies. (advertising, printing, graphic design, vehicle wraps) to compliment his screen printing, embroidery, etc business. ALL of these companies run out of the SAME address. What makes it even harder is he wants to continue operating them as separate companies. Fortunately, he is OK with using different phone numbers for each business but on the website (we are building for him) ALL the companies are represented like it is all one big happy company. How the H@#$ do I build citations for this business! 🙂 ??? THANK YOU FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS!! If I use the one 'parent' company building citations is a challenge bcs they do so MANY things in one location. If I try and build citations for 5 companies w the same address - that can't be a good idea either.
Local Listings | | Mrupp440 -
International Local Directories
I am wondering if anyone has come across a list of local directories for all countries/ regions. Like if there is a cheat sheet anywhere for what local directories exist for Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, UK, etc.
Local Listings | | EPICcreative0 -
Local SEO citations
Hello all 🙂 I've just started doing some local SEO citation stuff, using Whitespark. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to run different searches/listings for different keywords for the same business? For example, 'digital marketing manchester' and 'website design manchester' - or would you simply just do one keyphrase? All help appreciated!
Local Listings | | Seabrook
William0 -
Which Local Listing to Delete?
A local business has two Google+ Local listings: an unverified unclaimed listing an unverified, but claimed listing Both are duplicates with correct address and phone numbers. Listing 1 ranks. Listing 2 doesn't rank. Should I: A) report listing 1 and verify listing 2, or B) claim and verify listing 1 and delete listing 2 With A there's a risk of killing a listing that's ranking well and not getting a replacement. With B there's a chance of going against Google guidelines, as I understand claiming duplicate listings is a no-no (?) Suggestions? Thanks!
Local Listings | | MatterSolutions0 -
Local seo yoast plug in
https://yoast.com/wordpress/local-seo/ Anyone used? Any good? I have purchased as Yoast seems to be a good all rounder. I am targetting geographical and my question is: Is there any seo benefit ?It isnt a requirement of the plug in to add a physical addess ( you can add that it isnt and put a town) I did a quick test http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/locations/kent-band-hire/ In conjunction with an area page would Mr Google smile with glee or get his big red marker out ? Cheers as always!
Local Listings | | Agentmorris0