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.
Concerned about cannibalization for local SEO results. Should we move some of our location pages to a subdomain?
-
Currently we are providing local SEO recommendations for a well known pharmacy chain. Like most major brands they enjoy multiple organic (not just 3 pack results) listings when people search for local phrases such as "Dallas pharmacy clinics'".
The issue is that all these listings are coming from the same domain page. We are seeing multiple listings both branded and non-branded search queries.
Our concern is that Google will someday decide to choose one listing as the most authoritative and nix the rest of the local listings which will reduce their first page search engine saturation. To maintain first page saturation we are considering recommending to the client that they move some of their location listings
to a subdomain (different IP address) to avoid a Google "clean up". Please note that our client is certainly not using any "doorway" pages but some of these are very scarce on content. They do not have an issue with duplicate content either.By using subdomains could we help maintain our client's first page saturation? Any links to articles would be much appreciated.
-
Hi Rosemary,
Thanks for the clarification. For a pharmacy chain (or any other franchise) here is what would typically be appropriate:
-
You have a single website.This website has some basic pages like home, about, specials, contact and what have you.
-
In addition to this, you build a unique page of high quality for each of your locations. I don't recommend subdomains. I recommend subfolders. So, this would look like: thepharmacy.com/sugar-land for your store in Sugar Land Texas, and thepharmacy.com/dallas, for your store in Dallas. If you have more than one location in a city like Dallas, your URLs might look like thepharmacy.com/dallas-deep-ellum and thepharmacy.com/dallas-highland-park. Put the complete contact info (NAP) at the top of each page and then create strong content to make the pages interesting, helpful and unique.
-
From your Sugar Land citations, across the web, be sure you are linking to the landing page you've created on the site for Sugar Land, ditto for Dallas citations, etc.
This would be considered a standard methodology for any multi-location business.
How you then showcase these pages on the website needs to be dictated by the number of locations you have. You want them to be easy to find. You might check out a chain like REI.com. Look at how they are surfacing locations for their users and how they are making their pages unique. They do a good job!
Hope this helps!
-
-
Thanks for the detailed response and questions Miriam. Just to be clear I am not referring to "listings" but organic search results for individual store locations. Would have just one additional subdomain with store listings (and different content of course) be appropriate for our client? Our client does have local Google, Bing and Yahoo! business listings for each store location.
-
Hey Rosemary,
Sometimes, local lingo can be a bit of an obstacle in having a clear conversation. I want to be sure I understand what you are saying here when you are talking about 'listings'. To me, a listing is a citation - such as your Google+ Local listing, your Yelp listing, your Bing Places listing, etc. I believe you may be talking about city landing pages on your website, instead. Is this what you are describing:
-
You have a multi-location business with physical offices in various locales?
-
You do not have a strong page on the website for each of these offices? Instead, all of your search engine results, including local pack rankings and organic rankings, are pointing to your home page?
-
You have a unique set of citations for each physical office? You have a Google+ Local page for each, a Bing listing for each, a Best of the Web listing for each, a Yelp listing for each, etc?
Is this all correct? Please, provide as much detail as would be helpful.
-
-
Since you are talking about specific location-related results, my guess is that there is no much use in trying to have many local pages for the purpose of "flooding" Google results. If somebody searches for "Hyperlinks Media Houston", then Google will serve the results for Houston only and won't serve other locations pages. Therefore the placement of those pages doesn't really matter.
-
These are unique pages showing up in the subfolders. However all of these listings are still from the same domain (same IP address). Some of these extra listings are not that important, however they are nice to have for first page saturation reasons. We were thinking of moving these lesser important pages to a subdomain since they are on a different IP address.
-
Hello, there.
_"The issue is that all these listings are coming from the same domain page" _- It is an issue, indeed. My recommendation would be to create unique pages (I wouldn't go with subdomains, I think that's just too much
for each location. At the same time make sure that you have all locations in local directories. This will help Google not to "nix" the results.
I'd say look how big companies do it - let's say Apple and do the same way.
About links - https://moz.com/learn/local - good guide.
Hope this helps.
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 Remove Address from Google Business Page?
Not very up to date in handling local listings, so here's my situation. I have an office that is not going out of business, but instead going virtual. So that physical address will no longer exist but the team is intact. So I am dealing with the Google Business Listing page for this office at https://business.google.com/ In the "Published on" section, it has Google Search, Google Maps, and Google+. I want to remove it from Maps and the address from this account. There's an address for this store, but editing it only seems to allow changing, but not removal. There is also the option of "Mark as Permanently Closed", but surely that isn't the best option since that will leave a nasty red "PERMANENTLY CLOSED" in the results when searching. What's the best course of action here?
Local Listings | | nbyloff0 -
How will changing the phone number on my website affect SEO?
We are considering changing the phone number to our website to one of those 1-800-eat-cows. How will changing a phone number we've had 10 years affect our SEO. Do we need to change all citations, Google maps, etc etc? What if we don't? Thanks!
Local Listings | | RoxBrock0 -
[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 -
Local SEO Tasks When Closing One Branch of Multilocation Business
I would appreciate the opinions of my fellow SEOs on this one. I haven’t seen any other threads on this exact subject and others that touch on it are somewhat older so I am hoping this also proves to be a good resource for others going forward. I have an existing client that I did local SEO for about a year ago. They are a propane service provider and they had multiple locations. So we did local SEO for the company primarily by updating NAPs and creating more individual content for each of the branches such as specific landing page for each branch on their website and individual listings in citations for each branch. Now they have sold one of the branches to a competitor and they need to remove all listings for it. I am trying to develop a comprehensive list of actions to take and I would appreciate any feedback on the best way to go about accomplishing this task. Here is what I have so far: Remove all mention of sold branch on client website, including specific landing page Delete any branch-specific social media accounts Some specific areas I have questions about are: What do I do with Google My Business listings for the sold branch? Do I try to delete/unregister/close them? Or should I just leave them be with an updated link to our website homepage? Should I even bother contacting the main NAP listing sites to remove the old listing or just leave it to fall off on its own? Thank you again for all your help!
Local Listings | | Ayres-SEO0 -
Why is the incorrect city name being appended to search results when that search is done from a completely different city? Screenshot Included
Hi Guys, This is weird. When searching "generator rentals" from within Vancouver/Lower Mainland and on a mobile device, our organic listing is ranked #1. That is the good news. The bad news is that for some reason the title returend is: Generator Rentals & Temporary Power Distribution - Edmonton". The "-Edmonton" is dynamically added, but I have no idea why. Edmonton is in a completely different province than Vancouver... over 720 miles apart. The only thing I can think of is that there is some sort conflict with our Google places account. You see, we do have an Edmonton branch. I have setup two branches... one for the Coquitlam/Vancouver branch and one for the Edmonton. And as far as I can tell, both are setup correctly. A screenshot from my iPhone has been linked (http://imgur.com/9YvyLDB). Any ideas would be appreciated. Thank you, Jarrett 9YvyLDB
Local Listings | | TrinityPower0 -
NPA. Adding two new locations. What phone numbers to use?
Hi everyone, Our client wants to add two new locations. Not sure what phone number to use.
Local Listings | | Ryan_V
We have main phone 800 number, with no adders associated, and local phone numbers for locations which we do SEO for. New two locations are not for SEO purposes. Client just want them to be listed on website and on major directories for now. Understanding NPA importance:
Should we use main 800 for both locations?
Should we get new phone numbers for each one? Thanks0 -
Does anyone use Moz Local + Yext? How valuable is this for local businesses?
For brands that have a budget to pay $600 / year for valuable backlink directories, would you recommend Moz Local + Yext? I would like to hear some feedback on marketers that use Yext. Thanks,
Local Listings | | ColeLusby
Cole0 -
Competitor outranking me on google with their yelp, facebook and youtube pages
I'm working to rank for a local search term (my city wedding photographers). I'm frustrated that my competitor is outranking me not with their website (they are no. #9 and I'm #6) but with their Yelp account (#1) Facebook Account (#5) and Youtube account (#7 - not outranking me, but right below me). I'm going to continue working on my SEO to hopefully get higher up, but even then, they are basically dominating page 1 with their links. It gets worse on page 2. They are showing up 5 times for youtube/vimeo videos, and 1 time with a spammy landing page with no images, full of keyword anchored links to their main site. What gives? Since when are social media profiles outranking local sites on google organic searches? Could it be that our keyword is just so low competition that google has allowed all this stuff to rank so highly?
Local Listings | | studio35design0