Local SEO: Links with the citations so should I slow down?
-
Hello,
There seems to be some nofollow and dofollow links building as I add structured citations.
Is this a reason to slow down the building citation process if you want the links to count? Do they help organic SEO?
-
Awesome! Very useful information from Mr. Shaw.
-
Hey Again Bob,
Happily, I was able to catch Darren almost immediately. I have his permission to quote his replies on this topic. Very fascinating stuff here, I'm sure everyone will agree!
"Citation velocity isn't an issue. If I build 100 citations today, they will "go live" on the various sites at all different rates. 10 might get posted same day, some within a week, others within a few weeks, and others with months (or even years). So, citation throttling is naturally built in to the citation building process. I don't believe Google is measuring citation velocity as a positive or negative factor, but, the links can hurt you if you get too many at once.I have seen a case where one citation submission on one site spread to listings on THOUSANDS of other domains within the same business listings network. Rankings tanked.
"It's important to make sure you're submitting to quality sources. See: http://www.whitespark.ca/blog/post/12-how-to-identify-quality-citation-sources
"I think it's only a concern if you're not careful with the quality of the sources you're submitting to. You can only cause damage if you hit a site like the one I identified (it's a very nasty negative SEO source that I don't want to reveal). Building citations at 20, 30, 50, even 100 per day is no problem in my opinion because of the natural spread of when these listings go live."
Great feedback from Darren, no? I learned something today! I always learn something new whenever I talk to Darren and I appreciate the time he took to share his take on this with me. If anyone knows citations inside and out, it's Mr. Shaw!
-
Hey Bob,
I think you raise an interesting point, given that many citations do contain links and velocity of linkbuilding does play a part in Organic SEO. No one is citing this as problematic, in my experience, in the Local SEO sphere, but this doesn't mean there is no chance it has any effect. As you are using Darren's tool, why don't I give Darren a shout-out to get his expert opinion on this topic? I'll return with an update if Darren will be so good as to reply.
-
Bob,
Thanks for the feedback! I hope you find great success in local SEO! One side note is that services like Yext will submit 40+ instantaneously with no harmful effects. That's just an interesting data point since if you're doing them by hand there's no way you could ever do that In the same amount of time!
Yes, building citations is not the most exciting task in the world. However a lot of times you will see the added benefit of gaining new customers through the other sites where your business is listed. Good luck and keep the data consistent.
-
Thanks Casey,
I think it's time to let the citations play out for a while. I'm glad you think it's OK so far. I am using Roboform and your post.
I feel like I'm doing directory submission. I bet the time will come when the algorithm changes to something not so easy to do.
-
I'm just using Whitespark
It's bobweikel.com
It's the first SEO besides content I've done for the site.
I'll spend some time auditing the competition. That will be simple in my case.
Let me know what a good round number of Whitespark-found citations would be for a new non-SEOed site. I can work on nofollow blog commenting and guest posting for now or I'll see what my analysis turns up.
-
The new NAP is actually NAP+W (W meaning website). That's what they're teaching at local U Advanced and I agree. Basically wherever you have a citation you should try to get a link. Everywhere you have a link you can also try to get a citation.
Many citation sources will give you a no follow link but having a mixture of follow and no follow links is natural and good. When you add these citations it may take a while for them to get indexed too. Many of these directories are huge and put your listing deep within them. Long story short... If you are building citations manually (even using the Roboform method in my Moz Post to speed it up) you should have nothing to worry about.
You will be surprised to see how long some citations take to get indexed and then how long they will take to help you. Don't forget to submit your listing to the major data aggregates like Axciom, Localeze, Infogroup etc.
-
I think that's a little too much. Slow down. Revisit your link profile. Do a complete audit for yourself and the competition. See what you really need. Revisit your On-page and then fill the gaps. That's a little too many unless you are talking about an authority site/brand with considerable customer base, traffic, audience to justify this as natural. Are these all same kinds of links/citations ? Blogs/Blog comments/articles/press releases/guest posts etc etc ?
-
Thanks Nakul,
Maybe 10-20 citations a day for one site.
-
Thanks Chris,
So this isn't link building as well, the links won't help organic SEO and might not even be discovered if I understand you correctly
-
As long as you are not over doing any one specific kind of link building, I won't worry. A good mix is natural. Don't bother too much if there are certain citations, follow, nofollow. It's the normal nature of the web.
As Chris said, How many citations are you adding in what period of time?
-
My take on citations for local search is that they're dealt with by an algorithm other than the organic algorithm, one which looks to verify the correctness of the NAP and qualify the sites upon which the citations are found and that the sites where the citations are found are disregarded by the organic algorithm. So, if citations occur on a bunch of local database sites, like yp.com, for example, and they also come with links, the fact that it's a site dealt with by the Local algorithm means that velocity of links add isn't an issue.
I could be wrong though. I've been wrong before. : (
How many citations are you adding in what period of time?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Youtube SEO Resources
Does anyone have any recommendations for Youtube SEO Resources in 2016? I've done a lot of work with Local SEO on video but having to move up a notch to national SEO in a competitive field
Image & Video Optimization | | abisti20 -
Local SEO Question: Domain Wide Vs Specific Page
Hey Moz Community, Question about Local SEO authority and how it applies to a domain vs. landing page. Let me elaborate... Company is launching a new local out reach sales channel and merging it with our inbound sales channel under one brand. The plan thus far is to create a targeted landing page for local customers/leads. I have been tasked with creating the written content and making sure we are optimized as much as possible for this landing page to show up for our city. Funny enough for a lot of relevant terms we are already in the top 10 with little optimization (Also due to low competition for most of these terms) Two questions: 1. Should the whole site be optimized for local - appropriate schema markup, G+ business local set up, contact page with correct address formatting, building citations/local links etc.? To accompany our targeted page? 2. Will taking a local first initiative hurt reaching our non-local target market? If so will a very targeted landing page for local customers do the trick minus rest of local optimizations ? I guess what the question really boils down to is will optimizing for local hurt our broader inbound search reach/ranks in the long run? I want to be sure we are competitive to our broader audience and local audience on the same site with trying to get into sub-domains or considering re branding what is essentially the same department but for local purposes. Responses and sharing previous experience would be greatly appreciated 🙂
Image & Video Optimization | | paul-bold0 -
Local SEO, how much additional information to fill out beyond NAP
Hello, When filling out citations, do you flush out each site with extra profile information like picture, categories, service area, etc or do you just fill out NAP and website link and move on? I'm concerned about the time factor but I want to do good SEO that lasts into the future. What do you skip and what do you add?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Any tips for optimising for Local Search/Google Places
I have a client that used to come up on Google Places consistently for some very competitive keywords - when they ranked quite low for them through their normal website - places would see them above all the organic results in normally number 2 position - whereas they would rank between 16 - 26 normally We have optimised the site and have 'A' grade keywords for the ones we are interested in google placing for and just recently we are out of it all together, even though we have improved their optimisation for that word with SEO Someone said that their phone number on the website had to match perfectly with google places and so does their address. Is this true? Is there anything else that will help them keep their position in places ? ie. setting up a Google + page etc., Any advise would be appreciated thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | intermingle0 -
Does displaying a mobile number for business hurt local SEO?
Perhaps a silly question but could someone please clarify if displaying a mobile number in the main site or Google places etc would hurt local SEO? Is having a regional landline/fixed telephone number a ranking factor? EDIT: This is for a UK site, does anyone have experience of this is UK please?
Image & Video Optimization | | Clicksjim0 -
Video SEO Markup Test
Hey Everyone, I'm trying to get a video marked up on my (test) website and it is not working. I was hoping someone around here could lend a hand. the post is www.zachsemago.com/?p=28 This is my first ever markup attempt. I assume I just put the markup that applies in the appropriate place in the wordpress post. I thought I had it setup right, and the google rich snippet testing tool told me it extracted some video data. I chose to rank for something without competition so I targeted "how to buy a car on jupiter, mars". The post shows up #1 for that term and some other related ones, but no video. I thought I had covered all my bases, can someone please take a peek and let me know if I'm screwing up somewhere? FYI, I don't have a video sitemap operating. Of the articles I read, it seemed a video sitemap was not mandatory. But regardless my brain has turned to mush on the subject so if I should/shouldn't use one pleas tell! Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | 3plains0 -
Tag clouds and leaking link juice
We have a popular blog, but SEOmoz analytics is telling us that theblog homepage has greater than 100 links and this needs to be addressed. One very big source of links on the blog homepage is the tag cloud. Can tag clouds be a source of link juice dilution? If so, is should we consider either removing the tag cloud altogether (not essential to the site) or consider doing no-follows? Thanks.
Image & Video Optimization | | ahw0 -
Local SEO - our company is in 2 very different locations
Hi, Our company nlpca.com is in 2 locations. It's doing really well in San Francisco, California But we've opened a 2nd location in Salt Lake City, Utah The problem is that our site is all about San Francisco, California. Utah is just as important as San Francisco to us and we need to start tailoring to both. People from Utah say they are confused because our site is so tailored to California. Even our domain name is the keyword "NLP" combined with the state initial "CA" for California. A new domain is not an option. One thing we are thinking of doing is changing our header to say "The NLP and Coaching Institute and the NLP Institute of California". It would say both of our company names and hopefully the first would catch the Utah people. But I don't think it's just our banner. Can you take a look at our site and tell us how to tailor to both locations and keep our current working optimization for San Francisco, California? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0