Utilizing the Moz Location in keywords vs including the location in the actual keyword phrase
-
I've searched the Moz blog as well as Q&A forums - but I specifically have a question about utilizing the Moz Location in keywords vs including the location in the actual keyword phrase. I've done both and get different rankings. For instance, I have "it company" with the Location set to Corpus Christi, Texas and our rank is #3. Then I also have "it company corpus christi" with the Location set to Corpus Christi, Texas and our rank is #6. Additionally, I threw in "it company corpus christi" with the Location set to National and our rank is #7. What is the best practice and what are the determining factors for the differences? Thank you in advance!
-
Thanks so much for your input and advice! Your insight is appreciated and I hadn't thought about it as technically as you did.
-
Not a problem, that's what we're here for
-
Sounds like a rank tracking question
The 'location' (commonly, in rank tracking software) usually specifies what version of Google is used (google.co.uk, google.com, google.fr etc) as well the origin IP address of the request (which can be city level, rather than national level). This all tells Google where you are, now
Including a location in a keyword doesn't necessarily tell Google where you are (thought it can imply this somewhat), it tells Google where you want to go or will be going. Where the service (or product) should be located
If you are in Corpus Christi and you are looking for an "IT company", your location will 'slightly bias' the results but so will many other factors. The reputation of other IT companies which are near you (but not exactly where you are) or which are location-independent (maybe you should just ship your machine) are also examined. It may be that in your current location, all the IT companies have bad reviews - and as such Google decides to include more companies which are in some way accessible, yet have higher authority, trust, sentiment and better reviews
If you literally type in "IT company Corpus Christi" - then you have made up your mind about what you want. The search results should be narrower to that area and other factors should be given less weighting. As such, it makes total sense that the results would (or could) be completely different!
One query shows a general desire for decent IT which is accessible from Corpus Christi. The other query tells Google that you pretty much only want to see results for places within Corpus Christi - or at the least, that you care significantly about that. Since the intent is fractionally different, expect the results to vary
My advice? Set the location to your area and track both terms
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
-
Is there any way to automatically filter negative keywords out of Keyword Explorer results?
I use Keyword Explorer a LOT for fleshing out new campaigns. However, the results I get frequently contain queries with words that are in my negative keyword lists. Today, I solve this with export and some Excel wizardry but keep thinking how convenient it would be if there was a way to provide a list upfront of negative keywords and get pre-scrubbed results. Does this exist? If not, how can I escalate this as a feature request? 🙂
Moz Bar | | ngowdy1 -
Moz Forum Responses Crashing Outlook 365
Don't know if anyone else has this issue every time I get a forum response email and I try to open it it seizes up Outlook 365. It totally crashes, all I can do is to kill the process and restart Outlook!!
Moz Bar | | seoman100 -
Keyword Difficulty tool showing Google search volume or Bing?
Hi, I plugged in a bunch of keywords to know their search volume, chose Google from the drop down and then chose English from the next dropdown and clicked on Check dificulty. It shoes me "Bing Search Volume (Exact Match)" on top but shows the name of the keyword and "for Google CA" on the left. Is the search volume for Google? or Bing? and the difficulty as well? Google or Bing? "
Moz Bar | | SpaMedica0 -
Signed up for moz reports - have received Moz error report - need someone who is capable to take report and perform cleanup edits within Joomla site?
Looking for someone in the US - please contact me at Mary@workingwebsolutions.com If available and interested in task. Thanks Mary
Moz Bar | | PortlandWebDesign0 -
Moz Toolbar not working in either Chrome or Firefox
Moz Toolbar not working in either Chrome or Firefox. I've updated both browsers, uninstalled and reinstalled the toolbar, just get nothing (see image link).
Moz Bar | | Jeepster
Anyone else having this? What's the fix? IH9uyNP0 -
Rel Canonical and Moz Crawl
we have Rel Canonical tags set up on a few pages. When viewing the page source, the tags are correct. However, Moz Crawl results show the opposite. for example the page source, correctly shows, URL X with a Rel canonical Tag of URL Y
Moz Bar | | S.S.N
but.. Moz crawl is showing URL Y with a Rel Canonical Tag of URL X ..any thoughts why this would happen? which should i trust more?0 -
Screaming Frog, Moz and other crawlers
Hi Ignorant question, but is it possible to use Screaming Frog or the Moz crawler or any other reputable crawler for a site still in development i.e. it is yet to be indexed? If so, could someone provide some quick instructions on how this can be done. Thanks in advance for any support. Neil
Moz Bar | | mccormackmorrison0 -
Moz Rank Tracker doesn't work with "PHRASE" Keywords!?
Hello, If at http://ranktracker.moz.com trying to track phrase KW - the system wont accept it. But adding [EXACT] match with [] - works well. Have I missed something? Cheers.
Moz Bar | | SEOisSEO0