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Interesting situation when I looked at Google Search Console this morning, I found that back-links from directories had dropped off and am wondering if anyone else is seeing this? Specifically, I am in Australia and had links from Yellowpages.com.au and Truelocal.com.au to my primary domain. Interestingly, Yellow Pages had gone a bit crazy recently in that the number of links to my site seemed to balloon exponentially from about 50 when I first listed to 700+ to 1500+ to 1800+ and then the balloon popped. Truelocal in contrast was only ever showing the 1 link. There have not been any changes from my end, and I only ever had one listing in these directories so not sure what generated all these extra links in Yellow Pages. Anyone else in Australia noticed a sudden drop off in Google Backlinks from Directories?  If not it may just be a temporary blip.

I have a customer who is currently a local business but with aspirations of franchising and becoming a national concern, historically I have had quite a lot of success in the Local space, but this will be the first national account so I am looking for any advice on SEO best practice for national businesses. Particularly I am looking at where the business will have a common set of products / services but will have multiple trading addresses / service areas. Any advice would be much appreciated.  TIA