Is eLocal a scam or legitimate directory for local SEO?
-
I just got an email from eLocal with information that is way farther off than any other email I have received from directories I know. I ran a search on them, and it definitely seems fishy. Plus, it's not showing up as a problem in my Moz Local account. However, I don't want an inconsistent listing if this is a legitimate site I should correct.
Anyone have experience with them? What should I do?
Thanks for the assistance,
Ruben
-
Hi Miriam,
Here is a screenshot. It may not look all the terrible, but Hollywood Hills is nowhere near us (other side of the state), and we've never had anything close to that phone number. It says a bunch of stuff in addition to the screenshot, but the rest of the stuff is just a boilerplate "how to contact us to get this changed" message.
- Ruben
-
Hey Ruben,
Curious to know what the email said...
-
Oh, eLocal is like Yext. Alright, cool, I get it now. Thanks!
- Ruben
-
They've been discussed in the past here: http://moz.com/community/q/is-it-okay-to-use-elocal-services, and Kristy's thorough answer at the time still rings true, "There is nothing blackhat about using a citation building service like eLocal, Yext, etc. Rather, there are other considerations that need to be taken into account in determining whether this is the right move for you." And I agree with her. It seems like you've got a handle on your site's listings and they wouldn't bring much additional value to the work you're already doing.
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
-
Practitioner Vs Practice Listings: Local Pack Issues
Hi, and THANK YOU! in advance for any input you give, its much appreciated. We've been doing research on this and also wanted to see if the community could provide any more input. We work with a plastic surgery clinic. The namesake of the surgery clinic is that of the first doctor: Practice Name: Gardner Plastic Surgery Plastic Surgeon 1: Dr. Gardner (we've worked with him since at least 2015) Plastic Surgeon 2: Dr. Baccaro (joined practice June 2018) Plastic Surgeon 3: Dr. Crespo (joining their practice starting Sept. 1 2020!) To summarize our issues to date: As we brought on our new surgeon Dr. Baccaro in 2018 we decided to ultimately claim his practitioner GMB listing, and to claim Dr. Gardner's (which had been unclaimed and we had to eliminate duplicates.) Before deciding to utilize the supplementary practitioner listings, we were managing/optimizing their main practice listing: Gardner Plastic Surgery. We continued to primarily/heavily optimize “Gardner Plastic Surgery” and mimicked the details for “Dr. Gardner” and “Dr. Baccaro” From Dec. 2018 - Jan. 2020 we would from time to time notice that "Dr. Paul Gardner's" individual listing was showing up in Local Pack instead of "Gardner Plastic Surgery" but it was not really a big issue, happened very occasionally. Around Dec. 2020 - Jan. 2020 we experienced some Google errors when trying to create Google Posts with videos--it resulted in a few very random and unexpected suspensions. We were posting appropriate content, it seemed that Google was struggling to process our video files from API and it would get stuck in a loop etc. All in all the suspensions happened, and we worked with Google many times to try to understand and stop that from happening. Fortunately that hasn't happened since (and we now don't post videos to Google posts because that was a bit too stressful. We still upload to main photo/video area) Since February 2020 to present we have consistently noticed "Dr. Paul Gardner" appearing in place of the well-optimized full of photos/videos/posts "Gardner Plastic Surgery." We thought algorithm updates etc./COVID were all factors as to why doctors may be more prescient than a clinic. There were times where we thought it was fixed for sure, only for it to continue to crop up. Specifically we were trying to rank for the search term "naples plastic surgeon" What We've Done So Far: I've done a LOT of research and understand a number of errors we were overlooking from Q&As like this (duplicate categories/phone numbers): https://moz.com/community/q/gmb-page-for-law-not-ranking-but-individual-attorneys-names-are And: https://moz.com/community/q/partner-outranking-main-site-in-local So I understand we have some decisions to make on the best path forward. We’re guilty of just about all of the issues Miriam elaborates on. ** As we move forward there are a few elements at play:** They are adding a new surgeon to the practice in September, we’re excited! Making a clear decision before he arrives is important With the addition of the 3<sup>rd</sup> surgeon “Gardner Plastic Surgery” is actually changing the name of its business to “Naples Plastic Surgery” as its much more suiting to the growing scope of practice. ** To end:** Wow. I wrote a lot and really appreciate it if you stuck with me! Some thoughts I had that I wonder if anyone has insight on: Is the fact that “Gardner Plastic Surgery” is “Dr. Gardner’s” namesake a huge factor into why the individual doctor is popping up more often? He’s well known and his name and his business name have been around the internet for years longer than Dr. Baccaro etc. Do you think changing the name to “Naples Plastic Surgery” along with other needed updates could help address the issue? Could our string of unfortunate, though ultimately well-intentioned suspensions be part of what’s enabled “Dr. Paul Gardner” to prop up as well? Should we choose to heavily optimize all listings and see how diversifying categories etc. helps? Should we try to de-optimize and focus on practice profile for now as that’s our main listing? If you have any other recommendations, I’d love to hear them. I think working on optimizing and diversifying our listings would be useful. Thank you again.
Local Listings | | MoxxiMarketing0 -
Had a local SEO client completely drop off in all rankings...?
Hey everyone! I wanted to ask the Moz community on what I should be on the lookout for in this situation; I have a local SEO client, an orthopedic clinic, who out of nowhere completely dropped off the map. Their Search Visibility is now at .001%. I really have no idea what would have caused this... I have dozens of other local SEO clients and have never seen this before.
Local Listings | | TaylorRHawkins2 -
No Appearance in Local pack - group practice favored
Hi, One client has a website, Google My Business etc of his own. He ranks ok to good locally for search terms. However, his entry simply won't show up within the local n-pack (where it objectively should) and also does not appear in the map. It seems to me that instead a group practice with a colleague that has both their names in its name/title. (Moreover, it is in the same spot - they decided to go with different websites and entries of their own, though.) For some reason, this practice is also connected to the ranking website of our client. I suppose (NAP problems and previously used phone tracking numbers aside) that this group practice essentially blocks the real client-entry from appearing. Has anybody made such experiences? (My provisional ToDo would look like: Disconnect the group practice from the client's website; erase/merge it if possible; do proper LocalSEO otherwise.) Regards Nico
Local Listings | | netzkern_AG0 -
How much local traffic should I expect
I handle mostly small business and provide SEO optimization services and content creation. My question is about local search. what is a reasonable amount of local search traffic for small service companies. For instance I handle an electric and hvac company with an estimated population of 100,000 people within a ten mile radius. With approx 20 companies who provide competition. Should I expect 10 hits a day 20, a hundred? How do I quantify results on a local level as to not make expectations too high. The good metrics I have is the amount of prospects who have found my clients through the web and purchased services. That percentage is high. But Is there room to improve if my client received 15 hits a day?
Local Listings | | donsilvernail0 -
Google keeps updating/tweaking my Local business branch addresses ? to whats different in my citations and on page. how can I stop it?
Hi All, I have a number of branches as we have separate branch pages and separate google local listings for these. I have been trying to keep them in consistent for citation purposes but google keeps trying to tweak the address in the local listings. Sometimes for example , google is trying to remove the premises number from the Road e.g 78 Doncaster Road is the actual branch address but google local business wants it as Doncaster Road, I also see Google is wanting to sometimes remove the locality name etc?.. Also If the local listing has a county ( in America - you would have State) , google is sometimes wanting to remove this add United Kingdom in Country instead ?. Is this a problem and how to deal with it as I think this is obviously impacting my local rankings?. If i approve all these changes then do I need update all my citations and page addresses all the time ? Or can I just leave the suggested "Update" or overwrite googles suggestion with what I had originally. Does anyone else have this problem ? thanks pete
Local Listings | | PeteC120 -
Any ranking success with Moz Local?
In the last three months, our Tampa office has gone from a listing score of 2% to 72% and is considerably higher than everyone else on the first page for Moz Local...but we are on the 13th page! We have not improved at all, even though our score has dramatically. I know that the listing is only a part of the local equation, but it just a little shocking to me we haven't moved up even one page. Anyone have any success with this tool that translated to increased rankings for local? If so, how long did it take you to see results? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Yahoo Local Basic Listing Verifications Failing
Hey everyone, Over the last few weeks Yahoo Local's Basic Listings have been failing left and right for me. When working to verify a business listing, I have been trying the phone, snail mail and email verifications specifically, and am 100% sure I've been inputting the correct code, yet no matter how many attempts I make, I get the following error: http://i.imgur.com/pJ7ggBx.jpg This is for multiple accounts, not just a single instance. Seems Yahoo's just got an unfixed, prevalent bug. I've reached out to their Support for information, but they have been unresponsive. Anyone else running into this issue?
Local Listings | | copyjack0