Hello there SeedofIntention!

You're right - this thread is very old. I highly recommend that you check out the beta of Moz Local Market Analytics which is breaking ground in providing local keyword volumes:

https://moz.com/local-market-analytics-announcement

Hi Davit!

Some questions:

Are you saying that this business closed its location that services LAX, but they are still ranking for it?

Or, are you saying they still have a location open there?

Do you serve LAX?

Please, let me know. Thanks!

Hello there!

Can you please clarify for me if you are a Moz Local customer needing assistance with a bulk upload or if you are trying to do this directly with Google My Business? Thanks!

Hi Jeff,

I would recommend that you gather as many screenshots and as much other evidence as possible. Then, tweet to @GoogleMyBiz and let them know you want to DM them evidence of a concerning case of widespread review spam. Wait for them to DM you back. I don't recommend doing any of this publicly. Confine your communications to DM.

All you can do is report it and hope for the best. Google doesn't always act on these reports, regardless of how much evidence you send.

If you aren't satisfied with the outcome of your private interaction with Google, you can then make the decision about whether to go public. If an issue is so egregious that it receives a large amount of press, Google can typically be shamed into removing review spam. However, the story has to be fairly sensational to garner that kind of attention.

Good luck. Fake reviews are so prevalent and so bad for real-world communities who don't know what they are reading is fake. Hope it goes well for you.

Its my pleasure! I think you are evaluating this scenario correctly.

And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too! Thank you so much for being part of the Moz community.

Thank you for the further details  Mª Verónica.

It is always so hard when Google moves in on a territory where we were formerly doing well. Think of how, ten years ago, individual hotels had a chance of ranking their websites fairly well with a little work. Now, Google's hotel product + all of the other hotel rental mega sites out there are about all that ranks for queries like "hotel San Francisco".

It sounds to me like what you are witnessing with the client in Dublin is the encroachment of Google into this space, and you are right to realize you can't really beat this. Based on this, and without being able to investigate your actual client, I have a couple of things to suggest:

1. There's an old saying: If you can't beat them, join them.

The client needs to become a master at posting to Google Jobs. They need to dive deep into learning how to ensure that their jobs are the ones coming up in the Google Jobs interface. I am not familiar enough with this topic to give expert advice, but here is a start: https://jobs.google.com/about/. And, if this data is being pulled from third parties like Monster or ZipRecruiter (see https://support.google.com/hire/answer/7326138?hl=en) the client needs to master inclusion on those sites.

The thing to remember is that hotels are still getting leads. It's just that less of them are likely coming from the website. They are coming through Google now. Your client may simply need to realize that their website is no longer going to be their top source of leads. Leads may have to come from other sources, now. It's a strategic shift the client likely needs to confront.

2. This does not mean the client should give up on their website. I would suggest that you conduct an audit for the client in which you take their job category searches (both their top ones and their longer tail ones) and identify all the sites outranking them for those searches. Then analyze those sites to see:

• Which ones the client can be listed on

• Which ones aren't job listing sites but might link to your client via a list, a guest article, a sponsorship or other unstructured citation opportunity.

I would consider the old concept of Barnacle SEO (https://moz.com/blog/barnacle-seo-whiteboard-friday) to see where it can get the client.

3. Finally, after taking care of everything you can do online for the client, I would advise them to evaluate their offline opportunities. If your client has a physical office in Dublin, what are the offline connections they need to make with job seekers in Dublin? What events can they sponsor, attend, speak at? Where do they need to advertise (billboards, newspapers, local radio, local TV?). What can they do on their physical premises to bring employers and job seekers into the building? Host events? Offer additional trainings and services? What would bring people in the door for a face-to-face interaction?

Google cannot replicate face-to-face communication. If your client can master the personal touch, offline, then they will be doing something Google can't rob them of, as you've said.

I hope these suggestions are of some help with creating a strategy for the client. Good luck!

Hi Mª Verónica,

Just want to be sure I'm fully understanding the query. Your client is a job center in Dublin, and is being outranked by competitors with a higher DA. Is that right?

If I've understood correctly, and you're convinced that it's the DA-related metrics that are causing these competitors to outrank your client, then the answer would be to improve your client's DA-related metrics, too. Is there something specific you were thinking about and wanted particular advice on about improving your client's DA?

Hi Dakota_G,

This is a good topic and you've come up with some good ideas to get started on your content development. You might find some of the suggestions in this article useful, as well: https://placester.com/real-estate-marketing-academy/real-estate-local-seo-tips/

Competing with a company like Zillow, if you are marketing a small-to-medium realty firm, may not be a realistic goal to set, at least not for the top search phrases you'd probably most hope to rank for. You may need to think of sites like that as places to get listed rather than to surpass in the SERPs for core terms.

So, where does this leave a company like the one you are trying to market? Typically:

1. Competing for longer-tail searches

2. Competing for something other than the "10 blue links", like featured snippets, video results, image results,  local pack results, etc.

Some of the ideas you've had, like providing weather results, are probably not going to be worth your time. People already have apps for that, or get their info on that right inside Google's results. But if you can come up with the best possible answers for questions that people are asking and that haven't already been covered with a perfect answer by a huge powerhouse publication, you might be able to start seeing some more visibility.

I would identify long tail terms that directly relate to your geographic and industry market. Do the searches for these terms. See what comes up. Look at featured snippet opportunities, People Also Ask boxes, Answer The Public, Google Q&A queries, Quora topics, etc. I'd begin gathering direct feedback from your firm's clients. What are their FAQs? Investigate FAQ schema to answer these queries.

Finally, I would look at those top sites that are outranking yours and see if there are opportunities for you to be interviewed by them as an expert, to be listed on them, to guest post on them and similar activities so that you at least have a presence on platforms you can't surpass.

I hope these suggestions help.

Hello There!

That's a great question, and it represents a challenge local marketers have faced for years without a good solution. I have some good news on this topic that I hope will come at just the right time for you. At Moz, we are currently in beta with our new Local Market Analytics software which is breaking ground in multi-sampled local analytics. Check out these two screenshots, please, for a sense of what Local Market Analytics provides, including local keyword volumes and rankings:

https://imgur.com/a/2eFUZJm

https://imgur.com/a/7kz8FN3

I would like to personally invite you to come join the beta and, especially, to participate in an experiment our engineers are  currently running surrounding scenarios just like yours that involve neighborhoods/boroughs within markets. For example, if you look at the above screenshots I've shared, above, you'll see analysis refined down to the level of the borough of Queens. To sign up to be part of this beta experiment, please go here:

https://moz.com/local-market-analytics-announcement

We're extremely excited about developments and would love to add you to the beta and have you be part of this experiment!

Good morning!

Did your images appear? If not, answering EffectDigital's questions could help the community troubleshooting this with you. Also, if you can provide a link to the actual listing, that would be really helpful, if you have permission to do so.

Yay! You're welcome, Bryan. So glad that worked out!

Hi Ryan,

I'm so sorry your good question didn't receive a reply yet. May I ask, are the pages you've published representing actual physical locations of the business (like a Taco Bell with thousands of locations) where the business meets face-to-face with its customers? Or, are they just areas of the country you are targeting without having physical locations and in-person interactions? A few details on the business model in question should help you receive some good replies here.

Hi Bryan!

Sorry for the delayed reply. I believe this thread in the GMB forum should be relevant to your scenario, but please let me know if you have any further questions after reading it:

https://support.google.com/business/thread/1859764?hl=en

Hi Justin,

So sorry you were unwell and I hope you're feeling better. I'm afraid I'm not quite understanding your follow-up regarding citations. Your initial question was about use of DBAs. If you have a second question, please share a few more details and I'm happy to keep chatting!

Hey There,

So, when a business is local, it's typical that we consider what Google wants first, because of their dominant role in local search.

What Google wants you to put on your listings is whatever name appears on your street signage, how you answer the phone, etc. So, if you are Cars UK on the sign above the door, you should be Cars UK on your Google listing. This then, would make sense as how you brand yourself in other areas, as well, such as in your schema, so that Google can associate your listing name with all other assets belonging to the business.

What I can't answer for you is questions related to legal requirements in your country. That would be something to discuss with a government official or business attorney.

My pleasure, Maureen!

I'm so glad you asked about Moz Local. We have a whole new-and-improved Moz Local now, and yes, we are definitely supporting the UK. See more here: https://moz.com/help/moz-local

Please write to help@moz.com if you have any questions about what we can do for your clients in the UK, and I'm so glad you found help in the forum.

Hi Maureen,
Thank you for bringing your question to the forum. I have a few  of thoughts on this:

1. First of all, folks are very unlikely to be seeking your business or your services by entering a phone number. So, I would call this concern a very low priority.

2. However, here's what I think may be going on, as I was unable to immediately  find anything connecting your phone number with your competitor (something may exist somewhere, but you'd need to hunt to find it if it does): I suspect Google is confused. The similarity in business names and domain names is leading Google to be uncertain about the identity of the business connected with that phone number. Because your competitor has earned more links and has a higher Domain Authority than your business, Google (in their uncertainty) is bringing their SERP entry up above yours. It's certainly weird behavior on their part (if, indeed, there is no asset connecting your number with their business hiding somewhere). But, that's my best guess. Somewhere in Google's system, they are confused about the identities of the two businesses and are conflating them with the same phone number in your phone number search.

3. What to do about this? According to Moz, your numbers stack up against your competitor's like this:

Them:

Page Authority: 25 ; Domain Authority: 19 ; Links: 911

You:

Page Authority: 5 ; Domain Authority: 3 ; Links: 2

As these numbers indicate, your brand is behind in building overall authority, and this is why I strongly suspect that Google is allowing this business to get into the mix of your search engine results because they aren't quite sure whether the competitor's stronger presence is actually a better version of your own business. This is my theory, anyway, and if correct, what you need to do is build up the authority of your domain so that it is firmly associated in Google's mind with your phone number.

You need more links, in short, and, as others have mentioned here, you may well need to start building out your citation set. Moz Local would be our home-grown solution for a UK business like yours needing to ensure that its local platform and directory listings are accurate and complete . You can learn more about it here: https://moz.com/products/local

4. Back to the beginning of this: it's unlikely that your brand is being harmed much (if at all) by what you've noticed regarding the phone number. People just don't typically search for brands or services by phone number. But, there is a good chance that your low authority is causing you to be outranked for the keywords that people DO search for in trying to access services like yours. And, what you've noticed is actually a good indicator that Google currently lacks confidence in the information they have about your business. That definitely matters, and so, the best way to build up Google's confidence is to grow your authority. I recommend that you put priority focus on both links and local business listings and that should be a smart start to making Google more confident about who your business is (and who it isn't!).

Hope this helps!

Good Afternoon, Justine,

This is an excellent question. There is no documentation regarding SEO benefits from the presence of thumbs-up activity on Google reviews. They may have some impact on the  order in which reviews are displayed, but I have never seen any study undertaken as to whether they have any impacts beyond that.

Because of this, I would treat the topic, in general, as one of low priority/low concern.

However, we've waded into something deeper here with this scenario of a client trying to pressure an agency to thumb up his positive reviews.  I'm assuming he's doing so because he believes it will benefit him in some way, but your question deserves a thoughtful answer.

So far as I know, Google has never released formal guidelines for the use of the "like" function on reviews since they rolled it out in 2016. They don't specify who should use that function (owners, the public, etc.) or whether they would consider any particular use of it spammy.  But what we do know is this: Google is very big on the concept of reviews being honest and transparent and sourced directly from customers. Anything that resembles manipulation is forbidden.

The "like" button isn't the review, of course, but it's associated with the review. Does it strike you that what this client is asking you do is to manipulate his review corpus? After all, you are his marketer ... not a customer. Google's position is weak here, because so far as I know, they haven't released specific guidelines. In that environment, I could certainly make a case for your client interpreting the "like" button as something he should use when he receives a review he's grateful for. He could respond to the review and hit the "like" button as a thank-you. But when the owner begins bringing in his marketers to do the same ... marketers who are not customers but are, in fact, paid contractors, does this not seem to be crossing a line from gratitude to manipulation?

Another way to look at this: how would the business owner feel if his competitor hired 100 people who did nothing all day but like his reviews? Would that feel fair or honest to him?

So, as I said at the outset, I would consider this a low-level priority given that I have no documentation indicating that likes impact rankings, and I can't even fully quantify the level of impact they have on review ordering because you will commonly see reviews with multiple likes being outranked by reviews with no likes. This isn't the biggest issue in local SEO, but your client's attitude could prove troubling if he is inclined toward manipulation. I've never had a client try to order me to do something, and that that seems odd, too.

If it were my agency, I would say "no" and talk with the client about the need to earn his reputation rather than try to fake it in any way. That kind of approach seldom pays off in the long run, and I'd hate to okay a client engaging in any practice that I was even remotely worried might be perceived by Google as spam. You'll need to make a decision on this at your agency, and then present it to the client. Good luck, and I hope my thoughts on this are helpful!

Hi Waquid!

Thank you so much for adding a bit more context to your question. I perfectly see your scenario now.

So, if a business does something like landscape design and has only two offices in San Francisco, it's likely that the homepage and both location landing pages will include references to "San Francisco" and "Landscape Design". The landing pages could also be optimized for hyperlocal terms like "North Beach" or "Glen Park" if they are in different neighborhoods.

However, if the business has, lets say, 20 offices in California, then they wouldn't be likely to use any city or neighborhood terms on the homepage because there are simply too many cities to cover. Rather, the homepage might reference regional names, like SF Bay Area, or Central Valley or Orange County, etc, or even just Northern California/Southern California.

If the service is identical at all locations, then there's really no avoiding using those service keywords on all pages. You can vary them in any way that keyword research shows you variants. For example, you could dice up findings like "sustainable landscape design, native landscape design, commercial landscape design" etc, between the pages, but if you have just one overarching service, then it will be reflected on all pages. It's the geo-terms that need to be parsed up to fit the scenario of your various offices.

Hi Waqid,

Thank you so much for bringing your topic to to the forum. I've read through your scenario now, but I'm not seeing the question you're asking. Can you please detail what your exact question is? Thanks!