Can you get in trouble/get results by sub-dividing one physical address into suites for local search?
-
We have a client in our area that offers a multitude of home services -- plumbing, HVAC repair, landscaping, etc. -- out of one physical location. It makes it difficult for them to rank highly for all of their services in local search since many of the competitors that rank highly only offer one of the services that they do.
They have come to me asking if they could create a Google place page for each service by making imaginary suites for their main address. So, for example, plumbing would be located at 100 Main Street, Suite A; and HVAC repair would be located at 100 Main St., Suite B; etc.?
Seems like this is either a great idea or could get you into some Google trouble. Has anyone experienced anything similar?
Thanks
-
i should also add, i was putting location in the title of the google places, worked well, but now they review them much more closly. i get supspened along with all my clients that i control. not just those that I did the trickk with. It took about 6 weeks to get back on.
-
Hi There
It seems like your client is requesting something that is considered to be unethical in terms of search. Stripping it back, they are asking if it's Ok to deceive Google Places by creating fake addresses, plus indicating that they are happy to display fake addresses to searchers.
With a well optimized Google Places listing and a well optimized webpage for the listing, it should be possible to show up for more than 1 of those home services.
My advice would be to avoid doing what they are requesting, as not only is is bad practice, it does present a real risk of being caught out, possibly during the verification phase that Google do, bound to get flagged up.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Simon
-
there was a story in the press about a lawyer who was doing well out of places, utill another lawyer moved into the same building and google merged their places into one, and the phone number was that of the new guy. So they certainly are on the look out for it.
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
-
Google+ Local ranking for company with no website
Hi,
Image & Video Optimization | | Ant71
Im about to start helping a small business who has a facebook account but no website. Has anyone got any experience of getting a business ranking locally without a website? Just wandering if NAP details from a facebook / Google+ account helps with local citation building? Or whether a basic website is required? Antony0 -
What (Local SEO) NAP to use when your country doesn't use Suite #s?
New Zealand does some good things, for example we grow hairy fruit called Kiwifruit, put other fruit into bottles and call it Sauvignon Blanc, but we can also be a bit, well...fruity. My problem is that when we Kiwis list out NAPs we do it like this: ABC Company, Level 1, 123 Example St. Now the fruity bit is we don't have Suite #s, there is never: ABC Company, Suite #400 Level 1, 123 Example St. We just expect you to go up to level 1 and bl@ody well find the office thanks very much (yea there are signs). It seems like a Local SEO shared office situation but it's the whole floor! I'm worried if I get an office in an office building then I will have my results merged with Extremely-Boring-Accountant and Angry-Lawyer who happen to be on the same level. What's a Local SEO aware guy to do?
Image & Video Optimization | | BruceMcG0 -
Google Local pulling incorrect business name
A client mistakenly put her business name in one of the directories with "In" after the name for" incorporated". She wants to remove the "In" because it just looks weird, but we cannot figure out how, its showing up in google local too now. She did update her infousa listing but that didn't help.
Image & Video Optimization | | handsun0 -
Improve rankings for keywords...you can't display!
Hey, I've read the art of seo (great book!) as well as numerous publications and blogs, forums, etc., but i cannot quite figure that. We are trying to improve the ranking for a website. Now, our partners don't want to tarnish their image, so we cannot use certain keywords, that we need to rank for (i.e. the users are looking for). With meta keywords being dead, what are the ways we can optimize for these keywords not being conspicuous? All onpage efforts seem vain. To be more concrete, let's say your site is selling widgets from brands A, B and C, and users will look for "widgets" in search engines, but A, B, and C don't want that you advertise/display "widgets" on your site, as it might hurt their brand image. Hos do you do that?!
Image & Video Optimization | | Philoups0 -
Videos not displaying within YouTube search results (query starting with '@' symbol)
We recently uploaded a video to YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah0CgZ22NNU) only to realize that it wasn't being displayed within YouTube's internal search results when searched for by the brand name. Our partner's brand name is @WashULaw. If you were to search for @WashULaw on YouTube, you'll notice it returns a 'No Search Results' page (http://screencast.com/t/ZP3SGM5sr). However, when you search for keywords without the @ symbol (i.e. washulaw, wash u law, etc) within YouTube, our video is discovered. However, if you enter the @ symbol within their search bar and choose one of the auto-suggest keywords, you'll notice the query returns video matches (http://screencast.com/t/wkghMhRY). Looking at the view counts of these videos, they appear to be over 100K each. Our video has been indexed by YouTube (http://screencast.com/t/6xV3kW2DHQ6R) and Google (http://screencast.com/t/r4jloA0BpPf). We've even added @WashuLaw as a tag. My question, does anyone have an idea as to why our video isn't displaying when someone searches for our brand @WashULaw with the @ symbol within YouTube's search? ZP3SGM5sr
Image & Video Optimization | | 2uinc0 -
Google+Local Reviews have gone? Any ideas?
Hi Since Google switched places to Google+ Local lots of the reviews that were on the listing are no longer showing? A customer of mine brought up the point when visiting the store today, when they are logged into Google they can see their review under Your Activity, however when they are logged out the only review is listed under 1 Review from everyone and the review is no longer being shown? Any ideas on what is going on? Also with local search / places optimisation has the best practice guidelines changed now that is transformed into Google+ Local? If so it would be great to share any links on getting the most out of this new + local service
Image & Video Optimization | | ocelot0 -
How to optimize for a business in a town that nobody is searching for
This is the first time I have run into this problem, but hopefully someone can answer this. If a business is located in lets say in South Londonery, but everyone is searching for Londery what is the best way to tackle this. I should also add that both have different zip codes but as far as search there is no distinction as they are considered the same, and South Londonery is never used. So while it would be easy to rank high for South Londonery, it's pretty much useless.
Image & Video Optimization | | KGHollywood0 -
Will linking to my citation sources help google recognize them / credit my places account?
Or does google treat this behavior the same way as a reciprocal link and discount any credibility of the citation?
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0