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Solid insight, but unfortunately we do have the 80 websites because the owners of the store manage each separately. Some stores offer different products or services than others and are completely separate entities. Each store owner that we work with is an individual client; we do not work with corporate. Plus, since we don't do marketing for ALL stores in the entire franchise, just a large chunk of them, one big site just wouldn't work. Also, it's really not possible for us to make all these store owners write their own content for the entire site.

We really appreciate your thought on this and totally agree with your logic, but unfortunately would not be able to implement either solution. Right now, we just need some kind of bandaid solution to utilize as we work through rewriting the most important pages on the site (probably either de-indexing them or some kind of canonical strategy).

Thanks!

My agency handles digital marketing for about 80 Window World stores, each with separate sites. For the most part, the content across all of these sites is the exact same, though we have slowly but surely been working through getting new, unique content up on some of the top pages over the past year. These pages include resource pages and specific product pages. I'm trying to figure out the best temporary solution as we go through this process. Previously, we have tried to keep the pages we knew were duplicates from indexing, but some pages have still managed to slip through the cracks during redesigns.

• Would canonicals be the route to go? (do keep in mind that there isn't necessarily one "original version," so there isn't a clear answer as to which page/site all the duplicated pages should point to)
• Should we just continue to use robots.txt/noindex for all duplicate pages for now?
• Any other recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

Yes, that's what we are seeing! These are the first couple of queries in which we are noticing this sort of search result.

Hi everybody!

My team and I are all noticing a new layout for local search results. We just noticed it today. Mobile and desktop results appear to be affected. Specifically, we are looking at searches like "event spaces in Richmond" and "restaurants in Raleigh" as 2 examples. The listings appear differently in the SERPs, and the top results really are not relevant to the search queries.

Is anybody noticing anything similar, or does anyone have any insight into whether this is something Google is testing or if it's here to stay? Also, any advice for overcoming rankings drops as a result of these changes?

Thanks in advance!

Thank you, everyone, SO much for your responses! We did see that BBB listing and were able to contact them and have the name of the business changed to the correct one. We will definitely try the Meta NOODP tag and re-work the homepage title tag and meta description and see if that helps. The weirdest part is that this just started happening recently - our search results didn't used to look like that.

We'll keep working on it. Thank you again, everybody!

Hi Moz Community!

I have a client, Acme Stove Co., whose branded search results are pulling in the wrong name. A Google search for "Acme Stove Co" returns pages with the title "Acme Stove & Video." Really not sure where this "& Video" part is pulling from - there is no mention of videos on the pages that are ranking with these terms, and Google is definitely using a title tag other than the one that we have worked to optimize. It appears to be happening on the homepage and our store location pages. Screen shot of search results is attached.

The company definitely does not offer any sort of video services whatsoever, so we're really stumped as to where this may be coming from.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!

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All great suggestions - thank you!! We're working with the associations that the client is accredited with at the moment to try to build some quality links. Branching out on top of that seems to be the right move to make at this point now, too.

That's great feedback, and the content is definitely something that is on our radar to work on. We did inherit access to all of the company's sites, but this Building Group site is our main focus. Unfortunately, the client doesn't have the budget right now for us to combine all services into one mother site (as much as we would like to!!), so we are doing what we can with the way that things are set up between the various sites right now.

Content is definitely actionable - and I appreciate you taking the time to take a glance over things! Backlinks are another action item we have on our list. This change just came about so suddenly that it's really thrown us on the work we've had planned.

Hi Moz community!

I have a question about a local client in Raleigh, NC - http://paragonbuildinggroup.com

This client came to us from another agency who had previously not done such a great job with the design/development of the site, or with the marketing of it, so we are somewhat limited in terms of what we can do on design, user experience, etc. But, the SEO is all still easy to tweak and we've been working on it for some time now.

As of July 5th, their keyword rankings have dropped dramatically (we're talking from first page rankings to nothing, according to Authority Labs), and they've fallen completely off the map in the SERPs. Their local listing doesn't appear in search results anymore, and WMT is showing a drastic drop in impressions (from 457 on July 3rd to 92 on July 5th). There have been no manual penalties on the site, no recent major development work done, and from what I can see, no signs of hacking and no bad backlinks. The only thing I can see is that Mozcast showed an 83 degree day with some clouds and rain on July 5th, the day that our rankings dropped off, but I can't find any documentation showing what might have changed.

Any insight as to what might be going on? I'm completely stumped!