Client bought out shop but used existing phone number
-
We have a client in Nashville who opened his first location on Spring St., then later bought out PAC Auto to open a second location on Dickerson St. Lately, we noticed that the Dickerson location wasn't ranking. I found that the previous business owner at Pac Auto had already built up a good web presence and that sigh our client was using their old number.
Basic NAP violation, ok, got it. But what to do next?
I decided to update PACs citations with The Car People's business name and website. Where I was unable to edit or where listings were already claimed, I just reported PAC auto as closed.
But yesterday I noticed not only was the Dickerson location still not ranking, but the Spring street location had indeed dropped several places too! (edit: I'm referring to local search results here as we don't own the site)
What kind of beast have I stirred?!
What kind of signals am I sending to Google that are devaluing the Spring st. location? Will things get worse before they get better? What can I do to make some progress on one without hurting the other?
Is it worth trying to get the previous business owners logins (not likey)? Talk to The Car People about getting a new number (not impossible)? Is it worth trying to get the site in order to build separate landing pages for each location?
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi Nick,
I would say you need to accomplish:
a) Getting the company to get a new phone number
b) Getting the developers to put a landing page for each location on the site
c) Building new citation for the new location, not piggy-backing onto citations for the old company. After all, despite the fact that The Car People occupy a building that was previously occupied by another business, there is no relationship between the two (or, at least, there shouldn't have been, if not for that decision to keep the other company's phone number)
d) Tell the client that some of the decisions that have been made are going to make it essential to have a lot of patience here while you try to create a data cluster out there on the web that Google can trust. Right now, it's unlikely that they have this. It's going to have be created over time with a lot of care.
-
I thought you claimed the old competitor page and tried to input your client's info for their Google+ page.
If that's not the case and you've already set up a Google+ page, there's nothing that needs to be done in my opinion.
I'm not sure that I would have had them change their number prior to reading this story, so as much as I would like to say yes and sound smart, I would have probably played it the same way. Especially when you think of the benefits of old customers of the competitor calling your client looking for the same services.
-
First off, thanks for your careful analysis, and to answer your questions
-
The Car People have the same name at both locations. PAC Auto (closed) was the previous shop at the Dickerson location.
-
We do the off-site stuff and our competitor does the on-site SEO (don't ask), so creating landing pages means a little push-back. So by "getting the site" I mean that if they won't take our recommendation to add landing pages (not to mention additional issues with NAP in html markup) then we'll push for a sale.
Otherwise we'll talk about a new number and start building again from the ground up.
Too bad about my goof on modifying PAC Auto's citations. Guess I'll go back and close those now.
Tough indeed. Time to call in the dream team.
-
-
Hi Nick,
Whoa - yes, this is messy. You are right about that. The business should have gotten a brand new phone number and I'd suggest that they do so and edit all existent citations to reflect the new number. If your client's company is The Car People at both locations, and their competitor is PAC, (I think this is what you're saying) you should not have attempted to edit or claim PACs citations, beyond reporting them as closed. You should have built new citations for the new business. My guess is that Google is now confused about which business is located on this street as it is seeing not only 2 business names hooked into it, but an identical phone number. Basically, it sounds like a citation confusion catastrophe
I'm not sure what you mean by:
"Is it worth trying to get the site in order to build separate landing pages for each location?"
Which site? Do you mean buy out the competitors' website? Something else? Your client should be in control of their own website, and have a separate landing page for each location on this website.
Whether what is going on with the one location is affecting the older location, I can't say. It is possible for Google to be mistrusting of an overall profile if something wonky is going on with part of it, but there is also a big shakeup going on in the Local results that could be the cause of what you're seeing with the older location.
You may need to get a professional audit of the situation, Nick. There's a good chance I'm not understanding certain nuances of the situation (such as whether both companies are named The Car People or whether one is PAC, and what you mean about 'getting the website'). Sounds like you've got a really tough client who did not go about things in an optimal way, and it's my best guess that a high level Local SEO would need to do a sort of case history to get all of the details sorted out on something like this. Tough one!
-
Great feedback--thanks! On your suggestion I think we're going to push for their website.
Are you suggesting closing the existing Google+ page for Dickerson and verifying a new page, or was I just not clear about having already opened one? And for conversations sake would you have done something differently to start? For example, having them change their phone number?
-
You're probably not looking at a quick fix any way you slice it but here's what I would do:
- Create a new Google Plus Local page for the Dickerson address.
- Claim/Create as many listings as possible for the Dickerson address
- Create a landing page on the client's site for both addresses
- Link each Google Plus Local page to the location specific landing page you created
I think you do those four things, you'll be fine.
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
-
Good to use disallow or noindex for these?
Hello everyone, I am reaching out to seek your expert advice on a few technical SEO aspects related to my website. I highly value your expertise in this field and would greatly appreciate your insights.
Technical SEO | | williamhuynh
Below are the specific areas I would like to discuss: a. Double and Triple filter pages: I have identified certain URLs on my website that have a canonical tag pointing to the main /quick-ship page. These URLs are as follows: https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black
https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black+fabric Considering the need to optimize my crawl budget, I would like to seek your advice on whether it would be advisable to disallow or noindex these pages. My understanding is that by disallowing or noindexing these URLs, search engines can avoid wasting resources on crawling and indexing duplicate or filtered content. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on this matter. b. Page URLs with parameters: I have noticed that some of my page URLs include parameters such as ?variant and ?limit. Although these URLs already have canonical tags in place, I would like to understand whether it is still recommended to disallow or noindex them to further conserve crawl budget. My understanding is that by doing so, search engines can prevent the unnecessary expenditure of resources on indexing redundant variations of the same content. I would be grateful for your expert opinion on this matter. Additionally, I would be delighted if you could provide any suggestions regarding internal linking strategies tailored to my website's structure and content. Any insights or recommendations you can offer would be highly valuable to me. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise in addressing these concerns. I genuinely appreciate your assistance. If you require any further information or clarification, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!0 -
Best Practice - Linking out to client websites in niche industry
I have a client in a niche building industry that provides 4 different services to them. She has provided me with a list of 131 past clients of hers that she wants hyperlinked on her site to theirs. The logic is that a lot of these clients are heavy hitters and quite impressive to their peers so the links will be reinforcing my client's value. Is there a best practice for determining whether the link should be follow/no follow? Should I be checking the client's site's spam score, page rank, anything else? Some of these 131 links will be duplicated due to the client performing more than one service for them.
Technical SEO | | JanetJ1 -
Handling "legitimate" duplicate content in an online shop.
The scenario: Online shop selling consumables for machinery. Consumable range A (CA) contains consumables w, x, y, z. The individual consumables are not a problem, it is the consumables groups I'm having problems with. The Problem: Several machines use the same range of consumables. i.e. Machine A (MA) consumables page contains the list (CA) with the contents w,x,y,z. Machine B (MB) consumables page contains exactly the same list (CA) with contents w,x,y,z. Machine A page = Machine B page = Consumables range A page Some people will search Google for the consumables by the range name (CA). Most people will search by individual machine (MA Consumables, MB Consumables etc). If I use canonical tags on the Machine consumable pages (MA + MB) pointing to the consumables range page (CA) then I'm never going to rank for the Machine pages which would represent a huge potential loss of search traffic. However, if I don't use canonical tags then all the pages get slammed as duplicate content. For somebody that owns machine A, then a page titled "Machine A consumables" with the list of consumables is exactly what they are looking for and it makes sense to serve it to them in that format. However, For somebody who owns machine B, then it only makes sense for the page to be titled "Machine B consumables" even though the content is exactly the same. The Question: What is the best way to handle this from both a user and search engine perspective?
Technical SEO | | Serpstone0 -
Is it ok to use H1 tags in breadcrumbs?
A client has an e-commerce site and she doesn't want a page title on the products page. She has breadcrumbs though. Her website developer suggests putting the H1 on the breadcrumbs. So: products> Gifts > picture frame with h1 tags round the word "picture frame". Is this ok to do? Or is it a bad thing for SEO purposes? Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
My client has lost his URL - is there anything he can do to salvage SEO?
My new client has had his URL for 8 years and built up good SEO, visitors and links. He has now lost it and the cost of getting it back is prohibitive. Apart from contacting all the places he is currently getting links from, is there anything he can do to salvage SEO and site visitors? Is there anyway he can get 301s done if he no longer owns the URL? If he starts again with a new URL, and loads all the new content on it, will submitting a site map help Google understand its not duplicate and all the content is just at a new URL? He is hoping that contacting Google and explaining will help them "look kindly", but I have never heard anything like this happening! Any ideas? Many thanks
Technical SEO | | Chammy0 -
Deep Page Link - url no longer exists
I used Open Site Explorer and found a link to our site on http://www.business.com/guides/bedding-supplies-3639/ The link was setup to go to an important, deep page on my website, but the structure of our urls changed and the url no longer exists. The link (anchor text 'National Hospitality Supply') does direct to our homepage, www.nathosp.com. My question is, am I receiving full link juice? Or would I be better served to create a 301 redirect to the revised / new page url? In case it matters, if I had my choice I'd prefer the link to go to the intended deep page. Thanks in advance for your insight. -Josh Fulfer
Technical SEO | | mhans0 -
Using Thesis as blog platform vs. Tumblr
I read a lot of advantages by using Thesis as a platform for blogging, but I like the themes and other plugins from Tumblr. Are there equivalents at Tumblr to the Thesis benefits so I can go a head and go with Tumblr?
Technical SEO | | HyperOffice0 -
Existing Pages in Google Index and Changing URLs
Hi!! I am launching a newly recoded site this week and had a another noobie question. The URL structure has changed slightly and I have installed a 301 redirect to take care of that. I am wondering how Google will handle my "old" pages? Will they just fall out of the index? Or does the 301 redirect tell Google to rewrite the URLs in the index? I am just concerned I may see an "old" page and a "new" page with the same content in the index. Just want to make sure I have covered all my bases. Thanks!! Lynn
Technical SEO | | hiphound0