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.
Do Citation Count As Backlinks / Referring Domains
-
I listed clients listed on about 200+ local citation sites and was NAP complaint. However, when I run a backlink checker using MOZ, SEMRUSH, etc it only show 8 -12 and none of them are the citations. Anyone have any pointers?
-
Thanks Miriam. I kind of figured that and I do citations primarily so customers can find my clients. I just wanted to make sure that I was delivering as much as possible to our clients. Again, thanks!
-
Hi Max,
For a tool like Moz OSE, it's a matter of depth that is likely preventing us from crawling through directories' millions of pages to find just one link on your particular listing on such a site. This does not meant that the links in your citations do not count as links - just that a crawl may not find them. Also, important to mention that the key point of building citations is not links - it's about ensuring that your business NAP is available and consistent on a variety of platforms. This makes you accessible to your customers and also strengthens search engines' 'belief' in the validity of your data.
-
Hey there
Yes they do if links were built. Keep in mind that these crawlers from these services can only crawl so much and retain so much information. So, while you may not be seeing them in those tools, that doesn't mean they aren't there. You may also want to do an inventory check and make sure those listings and citations still exist, and if they are still relevant and not considered spammy at this point.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
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
-
Unsolved strange backlinks being from neustar/localeze
I have a client that I used Moz Local services for, and I'm seeing lots of urls such as https://www.omegalab.neustarlocaleze.biz/directory/us/?after=2020-09-05T01:52:28.343352Z&count=50 being shown as follow backlinks in other software. Anyone else seeing this and think it might be an issue?
Local Listings | | JustinMurray1 -
Google My Business: Company listing is showing in search instead of division address - similar names/same city
Hi! I have a client whose company name is very similar to one if their company divisions. This division has multiple locations but its main location is in the same city as the parent company. The problem is that when you search for the division, the parent company shows up. The parent company has a physical address, but most users searching need to be going to the division address which takes customers. They are having problems with customers coming to the parent company address instead. I have made the Google My Business parent company page to show service areas instead of their business address. Yet, their listing still comes up first when searching for the division location. This is because of part of the parent company name is in the division name. My client wants users to be able to find the division more so than the parent company. Anyone had this issue before? Any tips would be great!
Local Listings | | agrier0 -
Subdomains or separate domains for dealers?
We are setting up websites for our dealers. We are considering whether it is better to set them up as independent domains (i.e. www.dealer-state-brand.com) or as subdomains (dealer-state.brand.com) Any thoughts?
Local Listings | | bcmull0 -
Why are my citations not showing up?
We're managing a website for a client and decided to use Yext to build citations. We've gone through and manually verified that they are live. Moz Local cannot find this website or the citations, nor could Ahrefs, or Majestic. Google has indexed 154 pages of the website, Bing has indexed 10. This dealer has two websites (I know that's a faux pas, it's by client request), so that they can "test" our website before giving up their old one. They're tied to the same NAP, but have different web addresses. We got permission to claim the listings for the website we sent live and put them up about two months ago. I can't figure out for the life of me why none of my tools will verify the existence of this website and the citations. I checked for a no index and no follow command in the HTML (which shouldn't be a problem because Google has indexed the site) and it was clean. The only thing I can think of is that the old site is getting credit for the citations even though we've listed a different website address. Can anyone verify this?
Local Listings | | jtaylormoon0 -
Local citations from business directories in other countries
Hi all, I normally work for clients in my home county (The Netherlands) and with local citation building I focus on Dutch websites or well know .com websites in the Netherlands. My rule of thumb kinda was, if it’s not known in the Netherlands it isn’t worth getting mentioned there. Since The Netherlands are pretty small and I think Google ain’t perfect I was wondering if it makes sense to list a Dutch business on any .com business listings that are internationally big, but aren’t well known in the Netherlands. Two reasons that got me thinking this direction: A big well known Dutch company offers a service such as Moz local and did integrate their service with several international business listing websites that I never heard off, since these business directories focus themselves on other parts of the world. Google ain’t perfect and I think they got more budget to identify trustworthy business directories with an international focus or a focus on America then with a focus on The Netherlands. So I’m wondering if it makes any sense to list a Dutch business on let’s say the top 20 international business directories (although these directories don’t have any brand recognition in The Netherlands).
Local Listings | | Bob_van_Biezen0 -
Best Local Citation Building Services
Hi, have any of you ever used a local citation building service? Are some better than others, any recommendations? Any bad experiences or companies to avoid? I'm fairly new to the process and it looks like there's a lot of snake oil salesmen in this vertical, so any and all insight you could give me would be great! Thank you in advance, I look forward to hearing feedback from all of you!
Local Listings | | maxcarnage0 -
For a classifieds site, should we keep deleted/sold/expired ads?
Unlike a blog, classified sites tend to sell items that eventually are no longer available, and it's almost every page on the site that works like that (except category pages for example) We have 2 options at the moment: We keep the old ad urls. Note that these urls won't be linked from on the site anymore. They will technically only exist in Google's index. When someone comes through to them, they are present with a suggested replacement ad that is currently available. So 5 years from now, most of the "indexed" pages on the site that google sends traffic to will be these pages that simply tell you about another ad. Not nice, but so many classifieds are doing it like this. 301 the deleted/sold/expired ads to a relevant existing ad. Might have scenarios resulting in soft-404s. Both have pro's and con's, but any further insight into the matter will be great!
Local Listings | | DotSlash940 -
How can I manually build local citations for a client?
Note: I am not interested in paying for services to build citations for me. I am managing building a client's citations. On many sites I am asked to create an account and verify my information. I have tried to create accounts using my client's email address and specified password so that they can manage their citations down the road should their NAP change. However, many sites require further verification such as security questions or a phone code. It isn't practical or effective to ask a client to confirm and verify all of these accounts. What is the most effective way to manually build local citations for a client? How can I get around the issue of email and phone verification?
Local Listings | | BlairKuhnen0