Factors affecting google places citation indexing
-
I'm sure we have all been there; filling out yellowbook/yahoo/citysearch/merchant circle citations flawlessly, only to wait months and months for google to decide if they're worth 'attaching' to your places listing.
I still believe that the number one factor for getting them to stick is consistensy of information, however my question is what factors affect the speed of 'stickiness'.
I've implemented google alerts and rss feed/link pinging services to get citations from hotfrog and BOTW indexed almost the same day, however after examing the google places listing, I'm not showing them as listed as citations; which leads me to my next point; that google places could possibly have their own 'indexing rules and speed?'
I've heard several suggestions on how to accelerate indexing, and quite a few of them included building backlinks TO these citations to improve pagerank. Do mozzers have any 'foolproof' ways of getting these citations to 'stick' to google places listings within days, or weeks, instead of months?
-
I think he meant to say QDF. Quality Deserves Freshness.
See: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-query-deserves-freshness
-
What is the DQF algorithm?
-
Thank you, i found this quite helpful.
-
I have experience the same as Darren. In my frustration I did a yahoo placement page for $10 a month, with excellent local search results. Well worth the money. Doing a free bing one now.
-
We have been watching this for a while. In our research we have tried linking to the citation sites, and have had little success. There is no doubt that the principles of places ranking are related to, but not the same as normal organic.
Reviews are very helpful, and next to the normal important areas (profile completeness, address and others) I would put reviews as top priority. Not only on Places, but Yahoo, Insider pages, city search, yelp, Angies, and even customer lobby. I am sure there are more. Recently Places started displaying reviews from the Places accounts owners web site. Seems if you use reviews or testimonial in the URL they may pick that up. This may be an attempt on Google's part, to slow down the number of duplicate reviews. (Those with ears , let them hear). <- not sure what I mean, but I have only had one cup of coffee so far.
Look at the simple fact, that you will rarely find a places account on the 2nd or 3rd page of results that have a significant amount of reviews.
We have stopped using the "usually suspects" for citations, as in the last 5 months they seem to have little value. What we do see working is citations on other "local" sites. Not directories, but related local sites. Much harder work, but Google likes it when we work hard for a citation or link... right?
PS- We are not all that large in SEO, just do local clients , so our research is very limited.
-
It would seem to follow logic that Google would count and attach citations from authoritative, trusted sources. It might help to build links to your citations, if that makes sense.
-
Hi Ilya,
It's a common misconception that the only citations that "count" (or stick) are the ones that Google lists on the Place Page. All the local SEOs I know, myself included, consider the citation listing in the Places page to be about as useless as Google's lame link: command. Google doesn't show you all the citations for your business. Doesn't have anything to do with them getting indexed or not.
Search for your business phone number plus the name of the directory in Google. If you see results, your citation is indexed, and you can move on to the rest of your citation building list.
-
Saibose
The authority sites are fairly established in most areas. They're the citygrid sites like merchant circle, citysearch, etc, also yelp, hotfrog, botw. Then there's the secondary yellow pages like superpages.com, yellowbook, angieslist, brownbook.
The question I'm asking is how to get those sources to STICK once you know what they are.
-
sadly, the Google places listing is one place where the DQF algorithm doesnt work. The things that are mainly considered 9when the user is logged in or personalized search is on is: Proximity of listing to the user or the user's query. No of reviews that are attached to the places listing. The amount of detail you have filled. The number of reliable sources where you have reviews for your entity. Now, the "authority" sources are a big question mark and differs based on the nature of listing you have.
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
-
Disavow Google Links
Hi Guys, one question from my side: When I disavow domains in the Google link disavow tool, do I have to disavow every subdomain of a main domain.....for example; I want to disavow the following (sub)domains safsad.mydomain.com hapdasd.mydomain.com skdkada.mydomain.com Do I have to disavow every subdomain solely or does it suffice if I disavow "mydomain.com" and when done also every subdomain of this main domain is disavowed too? Thank you in advance. BG
Link Building | | MihaSI0 -
Central Index Directories
Hi all, I'm based in the UK and i'm looking to submit to a several directories under the central index umbrella, for example to these directories: http://findit.chad.co.uk/ http://directory.nottinghampost.com http://directory.burtonmail.co.uk/ I've filled my profile out and have submitted to one of the above directories, however when I sign in to one of the other directories it asks me to re-fill out all my details. Is there not a way i can submit to several of these directories by signing in without confirming my telephone number for each one ? Many Thanks in advance Paco
Link Building | | paco87230 -
Should I disavow spammy links that are showing in Open Site Explorer but not showing in Google Webmaster Tools?
Howdy Mozzers, After carrying out a backlink audit for a client, Open Site Explorer shows a range of outrageously spammy links for guys wanting a bit of assistance in the bedroom area, and so on. Hopping over to Google Webmaster Tools, there is no reported trace of said spammy links (for either of the www/non-www versions of the site). There are also no manual webspam actions found on the www/non-www Google Webmaster Tools accounts for this website. So my question is: do I carry out a pre-emptive strike and go down the disavow process of requesting removal from the spammy sites, and then submit a disavow request to Google after allowing a suitable period of time for the junky/compromised website to (not) respond? Or do I just leave it alone? Thanks in advance for your wise words of wisdom and pearls of clarity.
Link Building | | wh-seo0 -
How to get Google to re-recognize a backlink that used to go to a 404?
I recently rebuilt my website last year, the address is enjoyparkcity.com. I used to have a great link from cnbc.com at http://www.cnbc.com/id/34977253/page/5, but when I rebuilt my website, that landing page url no longer existed (http://www.enjoyparkcity.com/search_featured.html). I recently rebuilt a page to catch that link again, and it works fine. Is there a way for Google to re-recognize it? I think its a normal do=follow link so Im guessing it should be valuable? Hoping it could help my rankings? Thanks in advance for any advice!
Link Building | | SeanMatyja0 -
How to have a good position in Google bot ?
Hello,
Link Building | | Hamza9
my website is not appearing in the first positions in Google, it appears in the 1st position only if you type it address, but for example if you type a keyword that can lead to it, It will NOT appears, what can I do ?0 -
Has Anyone Heard from Google?
After submit RR last week, we got the following from Google: "We've received a request from a site owner to reconsider how we index the following site: http://www.butterflycraze.com/ We'll review the site. If we find that it's no longer in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines, we'll reconsider our indexing of the site. Please allow several weeks for the reconsideration request. We do review all requests, but unfortunately we can't reply individually to each request." We got discouraged that Goodle said that it'd reconsider if we are no longer in violation. However, we have about 4500 unatural links created by SEO co, who has proceed with some, but, we aren't seen reduction of such links. In fact, it went up. I need advise as how to remove the following (they are the few site with bulk links): fantake.com: have their webmaster info, however, since last request, we still have 1200 links from it. blogspot.com - is there any way to remove links from such site? onlineunionmall.com: don't see any contact info on their site Some suggest us move on by building good links, but, to dilute the power of 4500 unnatural links, it would take forever.
Link Building | | ypl0 -
What after I place a blog comment
I have started commenting on high PR DoFollow blogs more strongly off late. I don't do it just for the heck of it. I comment on relevant posts, go through them nicely and make sensible comments. This way I make sure my comments are not removed by the admin, What I want to know is... What after I make the comment and put my website's URL there? Does that mean I have got a backlink already? Or do I need to do something else too to make sure Google recognizes that as a backlink? I have the same question regarding forum postings too.
Link Building | | KS__1 -
How much time Google takes to see my backlinks
Hi, I got bunch of nice links in high pr sites. But some links was a 2 month ago and i cant find it in webmastertools, opensitexplorer and yahoo, because of that i dont know if my links are working good for my site.
Link Building | | Ex20