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Wow,

Tom, thank you for the amazingly complete and well articulated response.   You, kind sir, are a interwebs Rock Star!

Webmaster Tools is reporting crawl errors for pages that do not exist due to how my Joomla menu system works. Example, I have a menu item named "Service Area" that stores 3 sub items but no actual page for Service Area. This results in a URL like domainDOTcom/service-area/service-page.html

Because the Service Area menu item is constructed in a way that shows the bot it is a link, I am getting a 404 error saying it can't find domainDOTcom/service-area/ (The link is to "javasript:;") Note, the error doesn't say domainDOTcom/service-area/javascript:; it just says /service-area/

What is the best way to handle this? Can I do something in robots.txt to tell the bot that this /service-area/ should be ignored but any page after /service-area/ is good to go? Should I just mark them as fixed as it's really not a 404 a human will encounter or is it best to somehow explain this to the bot? I was advised on google forums to try this, but I'm nervous about it.

Disallow: /service-area/*
Allow: /service-area/summerlin-pool-service.
Allow: /service-area/north-las-vegas
Allow: /service-area/centennial-hills-pool-service

I tried a 301 redirect of /service-area to home page but then it pulls that out of the url and my landing pages become 404's.

http://www.lvpoolcleaners.com/

Thanks for any advice!

Derrick

Thanks Mike..

So your suggestion would be to focus on the local results instead of organic results, correct?

I have a challenge there as the business is run out of a home in New Market, but my target locations are lakeville, apple valley and so on.  I listed the cities in google places account but there seems to be a conflict with my G+ account that has me verified in New Market.. Anyway, that's probably another question topic..

The site is yalecreeksc.com

After just a couple months I'm placing on the first page for some keywords but I need advice on how to get over the hump.

Search results for "Lakeville Snow Plowing" and "Lakeville Snow Removal" return directory results for the 1rst 3 listings above the local results.. I'm right below that at 5 and 7..  (I'm not showing up in local results even though I have a radius but that's another issue)

Any tips or advice to compete against these type of results rather than a direct competitor?   How does a small company with limited to no budget go about outranking BBB and Manta.com?

I'm considering purchasing the BBB membership, and I imagine a link from them would be helpful, other than that, I could use some advice.

Derrick

Thanks Miriam.. I will try having my wife add photos to the G± listing from her account..

No, I am not familiar with "poke."

A search result that contains my google plus / places page in the local results is not displaying photos correctly in the preview.    It shows an image that appears to represent a broken link or missing image, however, when you click on the "See Photos" link it to takes you to the G+ page that displays the photos without any issues.

I also checked the google places account and the photos appear fine in my dashboard.   It's seems like maybe a 3rd party uploaded photos or something?  It may have to do with the recent upgrade to pages at Google +? (Thats another story, thanks for making me create a circular logo and a cover photo that doesn't style well in your mobile app)

Anyway, any thoughts?  Where are these photos coming from, plus or places account?  I submitted the question on google groups and a non googler told me to submit photos from a unrelated account.. This seems like gaming the system to me and when I looked into it, it takes me to the Google + page..

Search URL - I am first result in local, Yale Creek Seasonal Care.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=new+market+mn+snow+removal&oq=new+market+mn+snow+removal&gs_l=hp.3...1801.1801.0.2686.1.1.0.0.0.0.143.143.0j1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.5.hp.nKsMdxTGiW0

Also, I noticed the G+ account says service area is 20 miles from address while I specifically selected an area greater than that in my places account..  So what is it plus or places?!?!?   The way they are rolling out this move to plus is frustrating!   As a consumer, I prefer listings without the plus page!!

Thanks Miriam -

I wish there were clear cut guidelines for this so I didn't have to guinea pig it.

Derrick

Sorry, I am referring to schema.

Hello -

I am considering adding geotags to landing pages for services offered. The problem I have is that the physical location of the business, registered on Google places, is different from where these services are performed. The company is a lawn care provider that services several small cities and is based out of our residence. I plan on creating landing pages for each of these cities so I am hoping to use these tags to indicate to the world that this location is my desired audience.

Example, the business is in a town called New Market, MN population small so that is my location on Google places. 99.9% of the business we do is done in neighboring cities of Northfield, Lakeville and Eagan.

Is is it an acceptable practice to put geotags on landing pages for those cities or would this be considered dirty pool? On the eagan-lawn-care page place a geotag for Eagan and a different one on the Lakeville page?

Gracias!

Derrick

Tom -

< sarcasm > I will be sure to pass on the tips to my competitor.. Gee Thanks

I think you read the post wrong.. I was wondering what my competition is up to.

Derrick

Thanks for the reply, Takeshi!

"In general, what Google is looking for is reviews of your product that people have left on your site. "

Interesting.   So even if I were to take a Google review and highlight as an achievement on my site, with a link back to the review on Google, it could be frowned upon?

So in order to implement rish snippets for reviews, as intended by Google, I need to setup a review system on my site?  I find that strange,   Who is monitoring the authenticity of the reviews, Me.. Great... Who is denying all reviews under 4 stars, me.

Seems to me a more ethical practice would be to link to reviews on 3rd party sites.  Sure, I can chose to only link to the positive, but at least its from a 3rd party site  and while there the user can see my other reviews.

"The semantic markup code you wrote above looks fine, just be sure to put a space where you put "itemscopeitemtype" (it should be "itemscope itemtype")"

Thanks, I will make that correction!