Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Local citations from business directories in other countries
-
Hi all,
I normally work for clients in my home county (The Netherlands) and with local citation building I focus on Dutch websites or well know .com websites in the Netherlands. My rule of thumb kinda was, if it’s not known in the Netherlands it isn’t worth getting mentioned there.
Since The Netherlands are pretty small and I think Google ain’t perfect I was wondering if it makes sense to list a Dutch business on any .com business listings that are internationally big, but aren’t well known in the Netherlands.
Two reasons that got me thinking this direction:
- A big well known Dutch company offers a service such as Moz local and did integrate their service with several international business listing websites that I never heard off, since these business directories focus themselves on other parts of the world.
- Google ain’t perfect and I think they got more budget to identify trustworthy business directories with an international focus or a focus on America then with a focus on The Netherlands.
So I’m wondering if it makes any sense to list a Dutch business on let’s say the top 20 international business directories (although these directories don’t have any brand recognition in The Netherlands).
-
Thank you both! This really helps.
-
Hi Bob,
I think Patrick is on the right track with this. If you have a legitimate connection to these other companies, it won't hurt you to be internationally listed. What I can't say is whether it will help you, but I don't feel that it will hurt you in any way.
-
Hi Bob
If you legitimately do international business and have partnerships across the world, I would imagine they don't have an issue with it as long as your are staying relevant and on topic with your listings.
I would check these out:
International SEO (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for your response!
I did read the resources on Moz and couldn’t find an answer to this particular question. Ignore the low quality sites and focus on the top 50 comes the closest to what I’m looking for.
Any thoughts about how Google handles citations of a Dutch business on big international business directories?
-
Hi Bob
Take a look at Whitespark. According to their FAQ page, they do citations for Holland.
I would also take a look at competitors and also see what kind of opportunities or partnerships that they are taking advantage of. You can use this resource from Moz on the subject.
Here are some other helpful resources:
How to Have a Successful Local SEO Campaign in 2015 (Moz)
The 2014 Local Search Ranking Factors (Moz)
How to Perform the Ultimate Local SEO Audit (Moz)Hope this all helps! Good luck!
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
-
How do I rank for a different business categories on google local?
Hello, How do I appear on the local listings for google in different categories or services that I offer? For instance, we're a physical therapy clinic by trade but we specialize in orthopedics, sports medicine, and lower back pain. Thus, how do I rank on google local for these types of services? Currently, we rank for physical therapy but we also miss out on a big part of our business by not ranking for these listings on local. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Scott
Local Listings | | scottgray06200 -
Optimal URL Structure for a Multi-City Directory
I need help choosing the ideal URL structure for a multi-city directory. The current URL structure is /category which is okay because we are only in one geography. However, we're now expanding to other cities so we are reevaluating the best way of structuring the URL. The three options I have are: example.com/city/category Pro: Follows the user around with the city after the root (like language) Con: Possible short-term traffic loss. Build page authority on new URLs Pro: SEO Benefit for terms: {city category} example.com/city/ would have to be a URL and a general landing page. This would mean that /category would no longer exist example.com/category/city The website is currently set-up with /category but is now expanding beyond Toronto Pro: /category would still exist so no short-term SEO issues Pro: SEO Benefit for terms: {general category} example.com/category/ is already a URL and would display results based on proximity example.com/category (geo recognizes city) Pro: Clean URL Con: We're not Ticketmaster I was able to find major directory sites with very strong SEO doing it all three ways above. City First https://www.yelp.ca/c/toronto/restaurants https://angel.co/r/toronto/marketing/jobs https://www.redflagdeals.com/in/toronto/deals/c/cell-phones/ https://www.bizbash.com/new-york/venues Category First https://eventup.com/venues/new-york-ny/ https://www.yellowpages.ca/search/si/1/Restaurants/Toronto+ON https://www.weddingwire.ca/wedding-venues/ontario https://www.livenation.com/cities/130465/toronto-on No City in URL https://www.ticketmaster.ca/
Local Listings | | Neumarkets.com1 -
[Local Search] Do you get penalized by using a Google Voice number for each seperate business location?
My client is expanding and opening up separate locations and I will be getting all their online business listings up and running. The client wants to use a single 1-888 number for all locations, however, it was my assumption that they would need a local number for each location to improve their ranking. Could I suggest using free Google voice numbers that get forwarded to their 1-888 number or will Google discredit us for this?
Local Listings | | aedesignco0 -
Disadvantages to Hiding Business Address on Google Places?
From a Local SEO standpoint, wouldn't hiding a business address on Google Places for Business create an SEO disadvantage in that I would expect in the local portion of the search results, there would be a bias to showing businesses that have not hidden their address as then you can place a pin on the map at the location? Or from a Local SEO standpoint does it not matter if you hide your address or not?
Local Listings | | Jazee1 -
What is the radius for local search results
Does anyone know if there is a specific radius google uses to display local search results or is it simply based on the number of competitors or industry vertical.
Local Listings | | coolhandluc
Let's say I am based in covent garden London and I am looking for an indian restaurant. I assume that all results will be very localized as there are plenty of Indian restaurants in convent garden. But If i was looking for, let's say "wooden pipe shop" (i believe there is none in convent garden) what would google display? how far away from my desired location will google be able to extend it's results to?0 -
Why are my citations not showing up?
We're managing a website for a client and decided to use Yext to build citations. We've gone through and manually verified that they are live. Moz Local cannot find this website or the citations, nor could Ahrefs, or Majestic. Google has indexed 154 pages of the website, Bing has indexed 10. This dealer has two websites (I know that's a faux pas, it's by client request), so that they can "test" our website before giving up their old one. They're tied to the same NAP, but have different web addresses. We got permission to claim the listings for the website we sent live and put them up about two months ago. I can't figure out for the life of me why none of my tools will verify the existence of this website and the citations. I checked for a no index and no follow command in the HTML (which shouldn't be a problem because Google has indexed the site) and it was clean. The only thing I can think of is that the old site is getting credit for the citations even though we've listed a different website address. Can anyone verify this?
Local Listings | | jtaylormoon0 -
Do Citation Count As Backlinks / Referring Domains
I listed clients listed on about 200+ local citation sites and was NAP complaint. However, when I run a backlink checker using MOZ, SEMRUSH, etc it only show 8 -12 and none of them are the citations. Anyone have any pointers?
Local Listings | | InfinityTechnologySolutions0 -
Citation building for multiple locations
Hey everyone, I think i've got a good handle on citations, but had a question regarding multiple locations. I'm going to be doing citation building for a local lawyer, and he's got 4 locations. I'd like to build citations for each of his locations, but I was wondering if the business name needs to change? Ie. If I am building citations for Town 2 and Town 3, should the business name be listed as "Company Name Town 1" for the first location, and "Company Name Town 2" for the second? Or is it fine to use the company name throughout all citations, and just change the location/phone number to the location based info? I'm just worried about Google seeing differing info, but the same company name, and possibly penalizing me for it. Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | RCDesign740