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.
SEO - Should individual doctors at facility claim a Google My Business profile?
-
My client is a physician facility with several doctors practicing at the facility. When doing a Google search for some of their practices such as "family practice" one of the doctor's profiles will display in the Google Local pack - however it is not linked to the facility website where their profile exists.
As of right now, we are using YEXT and other tools to claim Google Business Profiles for each practice, not the individual doctors. If there are unclaimed accounts for individual doctors, they are alerting Google that it’s a duplicate and should be taken down.
Is this the right process to follow for SEO best practices or should we be claiming both the business and individual doctor profiles? The reason they are not claiming individual doctor profiles is to cut down on duplicate reviews as part of the Reputation Management Program.
Advice much appreciated!
-
Hey Jared,
So sorry to hear about your duplicates issue. This may be one of those scenarios which would require a consultant looking directly at your dashboard. You may need to engage someone with good skills to do this ... but, before you do so, can you let me know:
-
Are any of the practitioners sharing a phone number with one another or with the practice, itself?
-
What exact language are you seeing in the dashboard regarding the duplicates?
Thanks!
-
-
I've had the same question with our agency's healthcare clients. We have followed the guidelines that are listed in GMB for multiple practitioners in a practice which I've listed below. However, even after following these suggested practices, our GMB dashboard is showing duplicate address issues.
Google My Business Guidelines on Individual Practitioner Local Listings:
Individual practitioners (e.g. doctors, lawyers, real estate agents)
An individual practitioner is a public-facing professional, typically with his or her own customer base. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, financial planners, and insurance or real estate agents are all individual practitioners. Listings for practitioners may include title or degree certification (e.g. Dr., MD, JD, Esq., CFA).An individual practitioner should create his or her own dedicated listing if:
He or she operates in a public-facing role. Support staff should not create their own listings.
He or she is directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours.
A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations.Learn more
Multiple practitioners at one location
If the practitioner is one of several public-facing practitioners at this location:The organization should create a listing for this location, separate from that of the practitioner.
The title of the listing for the practitioner should include only the name of the practitioner, and shouldn’t include the name of the organization.Although we have followed the suggested steps to listing individual practitioners in local search, Google is still indicating duplicate address issues between the practitioners and the practice itself.
Any advice on how to handle the duplicate address issue? I appreciate any feedback.
-
Hey Chris,
Multi-practitioner business models have the option to either:
-
Promote the practice + promote the practitioners, or
-
Just promote the practice
If you go with the first, the main thing is to be sure that each practitioner has a unique landing page on the website (to which his/her citations link) and that each has his or her own phone number (separate from the practice's main phone number). Taking these precautions should normally prevent any issues with merging, but I am not quite sure what you mean about duplicate reviews. Are you saying that the patients are posting a review for the practice and then posting the same review again for a specific doctor? A little clarification on that might help.
If you go with the second option, then, yes, you can attempt to get rid of citations for the practitioners, but, because you are talking about a medical practice, it's very important to dig into Google's history with not closing doctor/dentist duplicates. It may be that the Yext rep with whom you're communicating is unaware of this. Note Linda Buquet's remarks on this previous Moz thread regarding this: https://moz.com/community/q/dental-practice-google-and-dentist-personal-google
Hope this give some good food for thought.
-
-
You're currently on the right track and for all the right reasons. As a user, I'd rather see the surgery rather than an individual doctor and as you mentioned, splitting your reviews across multiple doctors isn't ideal.
From your side of things, you're obviously better off having the doctor's surgery listed and having the potential to drive traffic to the website.
Another factor that I'm not 100% sure about is how the current situation of individual doctors being listed will play with Google guidelines.
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
-
Why won't a business show up in the local pack when all signs point to that it should?
Hello! I've been trying to figure out why a business won't show up in the local pack even though their GMB has more reviews, seems to be doing everything right, and just doesn't show. The business is "A Senior Journey", and should be showing up for searches relating to "senior placement services tucson" or "senior placement tucson", but no dice. Been doing a competitor analysis and they are doing better or on par with all of their competitors. The same businesses in Tucson that are competitors show up both times, even Phoenix locations, but not A Senior Journey...any ideas? Thank you!
Local Listings | | WebMO-Tech-Rep0 -
Fighting spam on Google Maps
"Suggest an edit" on Google Maps works occasionally and so does Google's Redressal Form. Sending a DM to @GoogleMyBiz on Twitter does too. But it seems like the vast majority of spammy businesses that I report, go unnoticed by Google. I'd really appreciate hearing from some other SEOs on how they remove crap from the map, with better results. Thanks.
Local Listings | | Jason_Taylor0 -
Google My Business - Service Area - Use Zip Codes or City Names?
Google allows you to choose up to 20 locations as service areas, and you can choose based on cities, counties, or zip codes. I'm trying to determine if zip codes, cities, or counties are better to select for our GMB profiles. We are located in the US. I am thinking it's best to use all 20 areas allowed on a profile as long as they are relevant, generally giving Google all the info they will let you provide is best. I also am leaning toward using zip codes because it also includes the city when you choose by zip code. For example: Entered the zip code 21009 and the service area selection provided was: Abingdon, MD 21009, USA Entering the city/state returns a selection of Abingdon, MD, USA I also think it may have to do with how people search and find your business as well? Does anyone have experience with this? Best practices? My google searching has not turned up any reliable info.
Local Listings | | WadeBayMgmt0 -
GMB best practice for chiropractic office (individual vs. business pages)
For a chiropractic or other doctor's office with multiple doctors, should each have their own personal Google My Business page page AND a business page for the practice? If they just have a business page now, is it worth creating a page for each of the individual doctors? And what if some of them have different focuses (like a acupuncturist and chiropractor), does that mean you should make individual doctor pages when you otherwise wouldn't bother? And IF we should create pages for the individual doctors, should they all have the same address and website since they work in the same practice. Curious if there is a best practice for this... has anyone seen positive or negative results with or without the individual doctor pages? Thanks!
Local Listings | | Mike-i0 -
"Duplicate" on Google Local - Attorney and Business Listing
For our law firm, we have a Google Local listing for the firm (Riddell Law LLC). Google also created a local listing for one of the attorneys (Riddell) (we didn't create it, but are in the process of verifying it). Both listings are at the same address. Moz Local says these are "duplicates" - is that true? Would Google penalize us for this? I am not sure how to fix it - both the individual attorney and the business are in fact at the same address. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!!
Local Listings | | bpurdue0 -
How can I submit Baidu business listings if I live outside of China?
A client of our wants to manage business listings for three locations in China. We wanted to submit to Baidu but from what I've learned this is highly regulated (you live in China, pay a fee and call them to confirm). This is the only article I could find about submitting to Baidu: http://www.nanjingmarketinggroup.com/blog/baidu/how-can-baidu-maps-help-my-business Are there any conduit or 3rd party services available that can handle this? Thanks
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Google Local Storefront or Google Service Area?
We have been seeing some strange things happen in Google local after the most recent update. We used to show up in the maps all the time and have made no major edits or changes to the profile. Now when we search for our services, we show up high in the organic results, and not at all in maps (local listings). We have our profile setup as a service area since we do meet with people and provide services at their location, but also have checked the option that we also serve people at our address. I am wondering if the recent update favors actual storefronts when people are searching for services. Any ideas? Technically all the actual work is provided at our location, and the service we provide at the service area locations is based upon consultations. If we switched it to an actual storefront listing could that possibly help? Our profile is fairly strong, and has reviews, long history of posts, etc. What gives Google?
Local Listings | | David-Kley1 -
Should my website link to my google business listing given that I already link from google business to my website ?
I have a website with individual Location Landing Pages for each of my Depots. I also have individual Google Local Business Listings for each of my depots. Should I have a link from my Website Location Landing Pages to the associated Google local Business listings or not ?... Given that I already have a link on my Google Business listing to the relevant Location Page on my website. I wasn't sure whether linking both ways would be more beneficial thus enforcing things better or whether it's not needed to link both ways . thanks Pete
Local Listings | | PeteC120