Google serving wrong page...

[mrodriguez1440]

Hi,

When you Google: "Los Angeles divorce attorney", you will see this site on the 5th page of the SERPS:  www.berenjifamilylaw.com/blog/.

For some reason, Google is serving the BLOG page as opposed to the homepage.  This has been going on now for several weeks.

Any tips on how to fix this?  Obviously, the Homepage is more relevant and has more links going to it, so not sure why it's happening.

Would you just leave it alone?  Would you use robots.txt to block Google from crawling the BLOG post page?

Thanks.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

My advice here is to get a good strong Scotch, a pack of headache tablets and settle in for the night - it sounds like one holy mess!

The only thing I can really suggest is to just try and tackle one element at a time. The fact that so much has gone on with the sites, would suggest to me that Google has lost track of where it is all up to.

Start at the beginning (wherever that is!) and work through sorting one issue at a time.

-Andy

[mrodriguez1440]

Hi Andy,

Great answer.  There is definitely a "trust" issue going on.  This client had two websites running in the past, and his previous marketing team did a lot of spammy stuff.

Moreover, he used his business name to promote two different types of law, family law and personal injury.  Here's the weird part.  On GWT, Google will serve his family law site for the personal injury related terms.  That makes no sense to me because there is no PI content on the family law site.  Perhaps Google serves it b/c of the company name association.

Even more strange, Google serves the HP for "Los Angeles divorce lawyer," but NOT for "Los Angeles divorce attorney" - (even though it serves the HP for divorce attorney Los Angeles).

As far as local search is concerned, that's a HUGE mess.  Over the past 10 years they had different business names, different addresses, and the SAME phone number.  Whenever they made a change, they wouldn't fix the old listings.  They simply created a NEW layer of listings to go over it (does that make sense?).

So you will see his biz name and phone number associated with two different practice areas and two different addresses.  You will also find his old business name associated with his new number.

I purchased MozLocal and Yext to help speed it up, but so far there's no movement.

Oh, and they also had multiple G+ business pages going at once.

Any more advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

You could noindex, follow the blog page, but I tend to see these issues fixed with some internal linking, just to remind Google which page you want to be prominent.

That said, the fact it is page 5 makes me wonder if there is a penalty / trust thing going on here as well. It wouldn't be the first time I have seen this happen.

I would also check your local search setup and make sure everything is completed.

• Keywords
• Google My Business
• Citations & Mentions
• Backlinks
• Reviews
• Local Directories & Business Listings
• Google Data Highlighter / Schema Markup
• Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number)

-Andy