Duplicate content
-
I am an attraction and I have just noticed that some of my vendors are using my address, and in some instances my mainline(phone), for their stores which are located on site. What is your recommendation, or best practice for this scenario as I wish to prevent this from appearing as a duplicate listing. thank you in advance.
-
Thank you for the detailed response. This is tremendously helpful.
-
Hi Setokin,
Glad to know I hit close to the mark in understanding this. Here is my advice:
-
It is essential that no one else use the park's phone number. You will need to let each of the vendors know this. Each entity being listed on Google MUST have its own phone number, whether these are entities you own or entities your vendors own.
-
If all of these businesses are located at the same address (123 Palm Dr.) then I recommend reviewing the following Google guidelines:
- Containment information indicating that your business is located inside another business (whether or not the businesses are part of the same organisation).
- Not acceptable: "Link ATM (in Tesco)", "Apple Store at Stanford Shopping Centre", "Benefit Brow Bar - John Lewis", "Kwik Fit Tyre & Battery (part of Kwik Fit)", "Costa Coffee (inside Tesco Extra)"
- Acceptable: "Chase ATM", "Apple Store", "Benefit Brow Bar", "Kwik Fit Tyre & Battery", "Costa Coffee"
Also read Google's sections on Departments and Categories in the guidelines thoroughly to understand how each entity at your park should be listing itself and if it is, indeed, eligible for a GMB listing.
- For those businesses that you deem eligible for a GMB listing, you are going to have to do a really masterful job with GMB category selection to avoid the effects of the Possum filter as much as possible. If you have 2 Mexican Restaurants in the park, for example, Google is unlikely to show both because of the shared category. So you may have to get creative here in choosing categories for those businesses you control and ALSO, look at the categories each vendor is using to be sure they aren't 'stealing' the main category that the park, itself, most definitely needs.
Wow! A lot to do here. In your shoes, I would honestly hire a really good Local SEO to work out this strategy with you, based on Google's guidelines, but if you need to DIY, I hope my pointers will prove an actionable starting point.
-
-
Thank you. That is exactly my situation. We are a cultural themed park in Hawaii. We have a large marketplace at the entrance of the park with a restaurant, stores, food trucks and kiosks. We own the restaurant and a few stores, however, the rest are operated by outside vendors/partners. Each vendor should have their own contact, however, It looks like some vendors have chosen to list our direct line (park's call center) and address as their address and contact information.
Thank you in advance.
-
Hi Brett!
There is actually some reason for concern here. Let's get some more details from Setokin before we determine whether or not his scenario is problematic. The devil is in the details of these situations
-
Hi Setokin!
I can see exactly why you are concerned. Let me ask some questions here, please. Is your scenario something like, you own a museum at 123 Main St. and inside of your museum, there is a restaurant, a cafe and a gift shop, all owned by different owners but also all located at 123 Main St? Is this your scenario, or would you describe it differently? Also, please clarify if these different entities have their own phone numbers or the phone number is the museum's (i.e. yours)?
The details really matter in a scenario like this. Please, provide as much info as you can. Thanks!
-
If you have verified your NAP via Google My Business and it's accurate, then you have nothing to worry about. Google won't punish you because someone else is creating duplicate listings, and they won't factor in unverified information. Duplicate NAP information would be an issue if you were trying to rank multiple websites for the same location. In that scenario, only one would get the benefit from citations and an optimized GMB profile.
If you haven't create a Google My Business profile yet, go to google.com/business and get started. It will take some time, but in a few weeks you can have a fully verified and optimized profile. Just follow the steps they provide and call support when you get stuck. Additionally please feel free to ask questions here.
-
Thank you Logan for your quick response and I apologize for not being clear. My question pertains to NAP information in local search. Some of our vendors are showing on the dashboard as duplicates as they are using our address and phone number. Additionally, other units of the organization are also showing up as duplicates as well. Can you advise on best approach for these cases. thank you in advance.
-
This isn't going to count as duplicate content. Duplicate content is more of a concern if someone is stealing entire pieces of content from your site and posting it on theirs.
What's happening here is actually a good thing, you're getting extra visibility and people are referencing your phone number from their site. This is great! Don't do anything to deter additional phone calls from prospective customers!
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
-
What's the best way to identify duplicate listings?
I'm doing manual duplicate research for an account and wanted to know if anyone had a resource to share on how to find duplicate listings for GMB and other citations. https://searchengineland.com/definitive-guide-duplicate-research-local-seo-238719 Ive been working off of this article from Joy Hawkins, but she mentions using Map Maker to search a phone number, but Google has since shut Map Maker down. Maps doesn't seem to work the same way, as I've searched a phone number which I know has duplicate listings and they don't come up. Any tips on a better tool or process?
Local Listings | | formandfunctionagency0 -
Removing a duplicate local listing in same city
Hello, I see three locations for a client. Two legitimate which I have ownership of, the third is a duplicate of one of the locations. Ithink it is harming rankings and I want to get rid of it. It is service area business. Things keep changing, but how will I remove it? My client obviously set this up a while ago and it is left with wrong or missing info. When I click on the business under "more listings" on maps there is a chance to "edit it" AND "claim it" but not delete it. When I strart to claim it I go through adding in everything but then I worry I am legitimising the duplicate. How do you get rid of it? Thanks
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
I have 2 locations and 6+ Google Business pages... How can I combine the duplicates without losing maps rankings?
I have 2 locations and 6+ different Google Business pages due to a company merger and automatic page creation. Some of the GMB even pages rank in maps above the ones we use for certain terms and most bring traffic to my site, but I know the dupes are hurting our maps rankings. Is there a way I can consolidate these pages by combining them? Or am I better off just biting the bullet and deleting the pages I don't want to use?
Local Listings | | formandfunctionagency0 -
A customer made a duplicate google plus page, now what?
A customer of mine went to a business conference about a year ago and one of the speakers told them of the importance of having an optimized google plus page. Instead of talking to me about it, they went ahead and created a brand new page and began posting content and reviews to it. I've contacted google and they've told me they deleted the first page, but it still always shows up in the local search results even though the new page has much more content on it. Has anyone dealt with a similar situation that could help me? I have them ranking #2 organic, but barely showing up local...
Local Listings | | jag10251 -
YP.com cloning my site! Will this hurt my original content?
Client was in an obscene YP.com contract. Now they are cloning the site I built for client, inserting the phone number that gives them credit for the leads. It's harvesting content immediately, loading pages I created just today. Client site : http://www.shephearstmeadows.com/
Local Listings | | jacksonmc
YP clone: http://www.awomansway.calls.net/ Is it possible this is hurting the site's score as source of original content? Anyone know how to stop it? Thank you,2 -
Google Local: When moving locations, is a new website/content needed?
I've effectively moved companies before, but I've heard that ranking locally in a competitive market after an address move it is necessary to redesign the entire website/content/domain as Google associates the old website/content/domain with the old location. Is this true? Does anyone have any direct experience with this? NOTE- I have updated citations across the internet and have regular social signals going to the new location, and this has been the case for almost 6 months now.
Local Listings | | mgordon0 -
.CA and .COM (Ensuring no Duplicate Content)
Hello, I know that this has been answered before. I have a website that has the same content for both
Local Listings | | EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT
http://example.com and http://example.ca/ 1. To Ensure I don't get penalized for duplicate content is there anything else I have to do besides adding the hreflang? Perhaps doing some stuff in the WMT?
2. Where do I add the hreflang? In the header section of the homepage? US site: http://example.com/" /> CA site: http://example.ca/" /> Thanks for you help?0 -
How detrimental is duplicate page content?
We have a local site wherein we have multiple advanced search parameters based on facilities available at a particular place. So for instance, we list a set of fun places to take kids to in a city. We have a page for this. We now have ability to select a list of fun places that have parking facility available or which are "outdoor". Now we use parameters to address these additional search criteria. Would search engines treat them as duplicate pages and in case it would how detrimental would this be?
Local Listings | | mycity4kids0