Moving Locations and NAP
-
Hello,
I am the new IT guy for a business that is moving. They have a ton of old NAP stuff for like 3 offices that they are no longer at and to be honest, the entire NAP is just a total chaotic mess. They did not keep a record of the accounts used to make the listings or anything of the sort.
Now they want me to fix it all up. Does anyone have any suggestions on techniques for doing this? Is there a way to get these out of date listings closed or do I just simply make all new ones that are correct? Or is there something I am not thinking of?
Thanks.
-
Creating new locations will actually create more work for you. Do like Miriam said and update the current listings. If you create new listings, you still have the issue of cleaning up the old ones which could cause ranking problems as you battle yourself to tell Google which information is correct.
LocalSEOGuide created a cool tool (NAP Hunter) to help find mismatched citation sources. Download that chrome extension and plug in both your current address, and past variations. Pull all that information into an Excel file, and then you'll be able to run a pretty good gap analysis to see what you need to try and update. Not all sites will allow you to update, and old unstructured citations like news articles, blog posts, etc would fall into that category. Local directories will be a little easier, but again there are sites that lock you out from editing unless you pay.
Don't wait & pray, be proactive to get these updated. Citation work can either be a large project or can be outsourced to different teams/products (Moz, Yext, Whitespark, or other consultants/contractors). It also sounds like they've manually claimed a few sites prior to you coming on, so you'd need to spend some time working with each site's support team to try and get access/reset the account. Without that you won't be able to update the business information.
-
Hey There!
Sounds like a big project. It's normally best to update current listings. I think you'll find these posts to be helpful, while bearing in mind that each platform has its own policies and options:
http://www.joyannehawkins.com/the-proper-way-to-deal-with-duplicates-in-google-my-business/
http://www.localsearchforum.com/moving-name-changes/36969-moving-business-best-practices.html
Hope these help!
-
Create new ones then report the old ones as "moved location/no longer in business" (whichever option is available)
then wait and hope things get slowly updated
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
-
Best Approach for GMB/Local Optimization for Central Office with Multiple Locations
Hello, Our site is designed to place people in different locations or houses. We have six locations total; each one has its own name, physical address and landing page. We also have a central office for the brand with its own NAP. All addresses fall under the guidelines of Google My Business (i.e. people visit each location and our office...etc.). Unless it’s ideal, we most likely wouldn’t be running a full-scale local campaign for each location due to restrictions on resources and wouldn’t want to spread ourselves too thin. Our question is; would it be best to set up a GMB listing for each location including our central office, only use the central office or just the 6 locations? – We know multiple locations is not an issue for GMB but we weren’t sure if that’s the ideal way to approach it in this case. Essentially, would it be better to focus on our central office for GMB/local efforts and just make sure that our other location landing pages are the highest quality possible or better to use GMB for every location (including the main office) and over time start local work on all of the above. Also, if we do only use just the central office; should we be avoiding listing the other addresses on each landing page to avoid confusing Google as to where we are located? Any help or insight on how to approach this would be very much appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R1 -
What is the naming format for locations is it brand name--Location name?
I am trying to arrive at an agreeable format for consistency across the ecosystem for our multiple locations. Is there a character limit for the location name?
Local Listings | | lina_digital0 -
What to do with One physical location but serving multiple cities?
Hello everyone, I need help about this. My client sent me this "I have a question about doing local SEO for other locations for the same company.
Local Listings | | Beachflower
The Brisbane data recovery business is linked to Corporate data recovery and are physically based at the same address. Now we have other website for the same business, but named after other cities (eg sydneydatarecovery, melbournedatarecovery etc.). The business has only one physical address, which the one used for Brisbane and Corporate. How can we do Local SEo for the other location website with our Brisbane address.
We do have the Google location registered to a local address we have in each cities, but not display to the public." N.b I already build citation using the address for Brisbane Data Recovery business name. And I didn't know about this before. Please help me to fix this mess.0 -
Google My Business marker/pin - Do I have control over moving it?
I am working with a country club. We opened the Google my business account and Moz Local. i think the developer/builder of the Country Club planned on the address being in different place than it is today. Do I have control over moving that marker on this massive property. Or, is this done at the city/county level? The marker isn't quite near the building or the true entrance to the country club.
Local Listings | | Joseph.Lusso0 -
NAP question and Google local.
Hello, My client has successfully grown one of their event venues locally (lets call it venue A) and on the back of that bought two more venues (B & C). Then created an umbrella company to manage all three. He now wants to market the umbrella company and so redirected the original successful venue domain (A) to the new umbrella company domain. The umbrella company is located at the same address as the original venue A. So it shares the same address, phone number, website as venue A but a different name. All this done before me. He has a Google local page for the original venue - venue A- and changed the domain on it to the new one. He also has Google local pages for the other two venue locations. But doesn't have a Google local page for the umbrella company. Now he finds rankings are down. Looking around I can see that his citations are all based on the original successful venue name A - but he has changed the website URL on many of the citations to the new domain.So a bit of a mess as we have a mixture of addresses, same phone number for all 4 , different business names for all 4, same website for all 4. If all the venues plus the umbrella company are in the same city, but have different names and addresses but the same phone number (for bookings) and web address, are they allowed a Google local page each? I suggest just having a Google local page for the umbrella company and remove the others as they are not actually separate businesses although they do have different addresses. But unsure if this is correct or necessary. Not sure how to progress with this one and any help appreciated?
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
Multiple locations for business displaying in search
I have two locations for my business but now if I search for the term "car medics" on Google search only one of the locations display now. I'm not exactly sure when this change happened but If you refer to my August screenshot http://puu.sh/lACx7/6329ef916e.png compared to today's screenshot http://puu.sh/lABPS/415fa451c1.png. The search results used to display both locations which is exactly what I wanted. How can I have this corrected? I don't want people to think I only serve at one location. I specifically made two location pages instead of listing both on a single contact page on my website to delineate I have two locations. Yes I understand both locations will come up if I check Google Maps but I want the same thing for on Google search as well.
Local Listings | | FPK0 -
NPA. Adding two new locations. What phone numbers to use?
Hi everyone, Our client wants to add two new locations. Not sure what phone number to use.
Local Listings | | Ryan_V
We have main phone 800 number, with no adders associated, and local phone numbers for locations which we do SEO for. New two locations are not for SEO purposes. Client just want them to be listed on website and on major directories for now. Understanding NPA importance:
Should we use main 800 for both locations?
Should we get new phone numbers for each one? Thanks0 -
Optimizing a location the business doesn't actually reside in
I am optimizing a site for a general contractor in a small market -- Chittenden County, Vermont -- and I'm struggling with how to label his local identity on-page. His registered place of business is in a town about 12 miles outside of Burlington, which is the largest city in the county and state. Nearly 80% of geo modified keywords go to Burlington, and most people consider Chittenden County to be "greater Burlington." I am wondering whether it will help or hurt SEO to use "Burlington" in the titles, headers, etc, even though their actual location is a few miles away. They don't get customer visits -- business operations are located in a residence and all inquiries come in over the phone or email -- so I'm not worried so much about confusing visitors. Also, their official location will be available in the footer and contact page. If I go with "Burlington," how will this impact search rankings and G+ Places when I start focusing on citations in various directories. Will this slight geo discrepancy cause problems with organic and local SEO? I've been wrestling with this for a while. Your input is REALLY appreciated. Thanks, guys!
Local Listings | | ptdodge0