While I agree it may take longer to see some of the citations that are created with Yext, I don't think the duplicate information from Yext's data push is necessarily bad. It's not like you're duplicating an article - these are local citations which are treated a little differently. Yext is good because it helps create consistency in the local search ecosystem (which is a positive local ranking factor), but i don't think Google dings it for duplicate content. Businesses create hundreds of citations with the same information, yet rank very well. I see that as Google acknowledging the importance of some parts of the data, but ignoring or not positively counting others. Local citations are not "low quality" in the sense they'll help you in local search. Local directories (Yelp, Yellowpages, insiderpages, local newspaper business directories, etc) are valuable in their own way, but only if your intention is to improve local search presence.

To check if the citations are indexed do a site:{citationURL} search. If they're indexed, then Google has found them and is most likely counting them.

The two websites could be working against you, especially if they have similar information on them. Which website do you have tied to the GMB page? Is it the same as all the citations like you mentioned above?

Barry is reporting official word from Google this feature is dead due to low usage - Check it out here.

I think our speculation in the Local Search Forum thread actually turned out to be right.

It looks a lot like what Google's done in the past with other features, which is a strong indication they're going to remove that feature. I think it's fair to say that casual searchers wouldn't know that feature exists because it's hidden behind a couple other buttons, and why would they care? (Many of us mention that within that forum thread) The more likely scenario is that a typical searcher will use a geo-modified search query to indicate a change in location; not adjust a search setting. Like I mentioned in my last post, we're making a strong assumption based on past behavior - not definitely saying it's being removed, since that hasn't been officially announced.

I find it interesting this has been going on for almost a month and has primarily affected US-based searchers. This came around the same time as Google's slow killing of GMB pages by refocusing them from G+ into Maps (still in the process of changing). Not sure if there's a connection, but it was interesting to observe this happening at the same time.

Google's most likely removing this feature. See this great thread in the local search forum to learn more. To summarize our assumptions, it's because the only people that really used this feature were SEO's to check ranking. Normal searchers either modified the query or did nothing, since most people probably never knew that feature existed.

Yes, I actually see this quite often for smaller sites. DA is looking at the entire site, while PA is only that page so if that one page is really awesome then yes it will have a PA higher than the overall site. Typically that will happen with the homepage or a really great piece of content, since both would attract the most links to your site. Those pages would grow to have a higher PA, which would be a strong indicator these are important for the overall health of the site.

So if you have a page that has a high PA, you can spread that by having a solid internal linking structure within your website. Link from the high PA page to other important pages for your site, and you'll see the PA of the linked pages grow.

Josh,

To prevent this thread getting out of control and getting to the point where everyone is name calling, let's step back and clarify a few things. While I respect your opinion that paid search could influence traffic from a personalization standpoint, your explanation leaves too many questions unanswered. I personally won't trust anything someone says without a valid explanation WHY they have the position they have. If you can produce a few links/references so we can take a closer look at what you're talking about, that would benefit this discussion way more than simply saying "because I talked with X, and they said it's true." Sharing more information can help educate everyone here, and help us all grow as professionals.

I really don't care who feeds information to whom; the only thing I care about is the fact. The fact is (according to my knowledge) Google has stated paid search (Adwords) does not directly affect organic rankings.

Google Forum thread disputing that PPC influences rank: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/tN5pIG8Qy0I

Google's Search Console Help: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=en - "Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results."

I agree that promoting your site through a variety of mediums will send a signal of trust that your site is legitimate, but that would be a macro view that everything helps a little bit. The question to this thread is, "Do you really think that them pointing their ads to the actual domain is going to increase your rankings?"

That answer is No. Pointing ads to the actual domain will not directly increase your organic rankings. Will it help with branding and trust, sure. But that's not the question we're trying to answer.

Now... If you have evidence that contradicts my points, I'd be more than happy to discuss and debate. I think opposing viewpoints are important to the development of the community/industry, and is really what makes it exciting. However, if the only thing anyone has to say is "I heard it from so and so" then this thread deserves to be closed if there's no additional facts to support an argument one way or another.

Paid traffic does not directly affect organic ranking. Those two elements are mutually exclusive when it comes to search. Click patterns will affect personalized results for the individual, but not as a whole. You're looking at this at a micro level, but I think (correct me if i'm wrong) Kevin is looking at this from a macro perspective to see how the two directly influence each other.

If you're suggesting that pointing an Adwords destination URL to any particular domain will positively impact organic ranking, then i'd like to see the proof. Making a blanket statement to say Paid does influence organic is sending an incorrect message. If you have evidence to support that claim then I'm sure this and many other communities would love to see it, but I stand by Google's official position that those two mediums do not directly influence each other.

PPC will not effect SEO efforts. The biggest reason I would suggest sending someone to the actual domain is because the user would be more likely to return and convert later. It usually takes a few visits to convert (PPC > Organic > Direct, or some mix of those), so that would be a good reason to try to keep it within the same domain.

However... If these landing pages cannot be imported to the current website CMS, and the external landing pages are converting, then it would be negligent to cut those out of PPC. You could really hurt the business if they stop getting leads. I would first try to see if the landing pages can be created on the client's domain, and A/B test. PPC does not affect SEO, and SEO does not affect PPC. It's all based on bidding, and quality score of the ads. If the client is getting business out of the current PPC work, don't kill it without testing and being absolutely sure you have a solid game plan. You don't want to get caught in a scenario where you could be fired if the client stops seeing leads.

We were actually discussing this on the Local Search Forum - http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/38249-heads-up-google-either-moving-removing-search-location-setting.html - Looks like Google is removing that function in many of the data centers across the country. This may be a test, or it may be a full depreciation of the function since it is possible most people aren't aware of it. I would assume consultants and marketers know of the ability to change location, but normal searchers will just tack on a location to the query.

Check out the other forum to read up on the discussion.

If the call is ringing 10-12 times before the call forwarding provider connects with your phone, I would drop that provider. A good company will have a seamless transition so no one would ever know the difference when they call you. Who are you currently running tracking numbers through? Sounds like either you've set up too many redirects in the call system or the provider has some serious support issues.

You can't get it removed. Google stopped removing My Business listings years ago. Basically what you've done is correct, mark it closed or relocated. By marking it as closed, it's removed from general search terms but will show up for branded searches. If you've changed locations, you should be cleaning up the old citations/directories to make sure they're showing users and bots the most up to date information. That would hurt you more than a single Google My Business page marked as closed (Google already knows you've moved from that location... sort of).

As Googlebot continues to crawl the web and find the old information it (they?) starts to distrust the "closed" location, since it's finding third party data contradicting what you submitted. Once you start building new citations, you need to correct the old data as well on major sites (use MozLocal as a guide to clean up some of the big ones). There are a few patents the US govt. granted Google on "scoring" (ranking) local results based on location prominence, which has a major component of how many sites reference the business online. The reference online is a citation through a local directory (structured) or through a news article, press release or other mention (unstructured). All these contribute to helping Google understand where your business is, which in turn will help you rank better in the local market.

So really long post short... TL;DR - Get your citations consistent with the actual address. Fix the old ones and make sure the data is correct. That will help you rank better. You can't delete Google My Business pages from the map, they will always show for branded searches.

As far as links analysis tools go I like aHrefs and Moz over Majestic, but if possible I like to use all three. They all have different indexes which in many cases overlap, but you'll see each bot has found different links pointing to you that the other don't report. Moz seems better from a content standpoint than anything on the list. SEMRush is better than SpyFu for PPC analysis/Keyword research, and I haven't used Wordstream or Raven much.

Basically this is a pretty vague question since there isn't a one "master tool" for all digital marketing (yet...). Each of these are used for a different aspect of digital marketing, so what area do you want to focus on? How to improve organic ranking for your website? Increasing conversion rates by understanding customer behavior/flow? PPC analysis to understand how to maximize your budget to see a larger ROI for your campaigns?

Like Miriam mentioned - use the real number on citation sources and major offsite areas. The only ways I would suggest using a vanity number on your site is through javascript swapping (think CallRail phone tracking), or by using it in an image with the alt text being the real (non-vanity) number.

I would A/B test with the javascript method on your site. That solution would use a find & replace function depending on the click source (organic, direct, ppc, social, forum, etc), and swap in the tracking number/Vanity number. Test that for a while and compare phone call volumes. I think if you are a local business that would hurt NAP consistency, so that would need to be monitored pretty closely as well to make sure that vanity number doesn't cause damage.