Ranking Differences for Google+ Local vs. Places Listings
-
I'm seeing some odd behavior with Google+ Local and Google Places listings for clients. I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing it...
Here's the situation:
We've recently bought on 4 new clients that all have duplicate listing issues, and, weirdly, all have both places and a Google+ local created listings.
For three of those four, the Google+ local listing is outranking the Places account for a brand name search (e.g. Dr. John Doe). Weirdly, in one instance, the Google+ local account that is outranking the Places page is named in a less accurate fashion. e.g searching for "Dr. John Doe" the rankings look like this...
A) John Doe Plastic Surgery, P.C. - Dr. John Doe
B) Dr. John Doe, MD
Anyone else seeing this sort of behavior?
How are you creating local listings for clients these days - via the places dashboard, or Google+ Local?
-
Hi Bede,
Got it. No, I have not run into this or seen it reported. Very interesting. I think that might be worth reporting to Google via their data issues phone number, though I suspect they might tell you to merge the listings...in which case, I personally wouldn't follow that advice. You could try to call them about it, though:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs
Wish I had more insight on this, but I've not seen it before.
-
Hi Miriam,
I think the confusion comes from my incorrect use of terminology more than anything.
What I had noticed in the examples I mentioned was that Google+ Local pages that were being managed via the old places dashboard (what I was referring to as a "Places Page") were being outranked by those that had been created (By clients) in the Google+ Local dashboard. This is for brand-name searches.
So, we ended up with 2-pack listings:
Rank 1 - Newer listing, created via Google+ dashboard (New Page > Local Business or Place > Search and find via Phone Number etc.).
Rank 2 - Older listing, created back when Google+ didn't exist, and places was the only option.
Does that make sense?
I had read about the new dashboard and merge feature on Mike Blumenthal's blog. No sign of for me yet, but I'm definitely excited about it!
Thanks for responding!
Bede
-
Hey Bede,
I'm so sorry I didn't see this thread earlier. It just showed up in my inbox today. I am a bit puzzled by what you are describing, and this is doubtless due to the confusion surrounding agreed-upon terminology for Google's products. To me:
-
There are no Google Place Pages anymore
-
They all became Google+ Local pages (with the new interface), though many are still being controlled via the Google Places Dashboard.
-
They are shortly about to all become Google+ Local pages being controlled via the new Google Places for Business Dashboard that Google is rolling out (and which, apparently is supposed to make the merging of local and social features easier via a simple verification action).
-
But if you don't have the Google Places for Business Dashboard yet, merging is hazardous. Who knows? It may still prove to be hazardous in the new environment as well. Too new to tell.
Do my definitions match yours? Am I missing something? Please, let me know as I am very interested in your question, Bede.
-
-
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for the response.
My post wasn't so much about "How do I fix this" as it was my observation of Google+ Local pages ranking higher in the local SERPs than a page that was created with the older Places dashboard. I was hoping other people might have experienced similar situations.
In the situation that I'm talking about, the pages are actually Google+ Local pages and Places Pages (rather than a standard Google+ Business page). The merge process that's currently available is for combining Google+ Business pages and Places Pages, rather than a Google+ Local page and a Places page. As far as I'm aware, you can't merge a Google+ Local page with a Places Page at this point.
That aside, unfortunately we've found the merge process to be very unreliable - we're generally not doing it at all right now, due to all the issues people are experiencing.
I was also asking out of curiosity whether more people were using the Google+ Local interface to create a new local listing, or if they were using the Google Places dashboard.
Again, thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it.
Bede
-
Hi Bede,
You can merge them http://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-local-verification-15526.html
Also, when it comes to a doctors/dentists you can have a listing for the name of the place and each dr. that practices there.
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
-
Does capitalization consistency matter in Local Citations?
In my research I have found multiple citations that were both lowercase and uppercase. Does this inconsistency effect ranking?
Image & Video Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Multiple Vacation Rentals Local Listings
A client of ours is a vacation rental company with over 50 properties (each property is only marketed through this company). They recently asked if they could add each rental property as a listing in Google Places, Bing, Yahoo, etc. I've been doing research on whether this is advisable or can hurt them in some way. If anyone has had a similar situation, any advice would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
Image & Video Optimization | | naymark.biz0 -
Merge google plus and google plus business
Hi guys While logged in to my Google account Ive noticed we have 2 Google plus pages. https://plus.google.com/103609762965753667153/posts https://plus.google.com/b/112981948934843525105/112981948934843525105/posts Both accessed through the same email login. One has different posts than the other!! Is there a way to merge both of these? AmI right in thinking one is a personal profile and the other is a business one? We have multiple authors for our blog and each has their own google plus page and correct authorship set up etc but having these 2 pages is more work to manage. Any ideas? ThanksRobert
Image & Video Optimization | | Trespass0 -
Local Listing Directories value
Hello fellow mozzers, I would like to start a discussion on whether certain local listing directories are worth it. Most people are of course familiar with Google+ Local(Google Places), Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Yelp, Hotfrog etcetera.. I know there are a lot more of these big local listing directories. I am situated in Holland and we have a lot of small local listing directories.
Image & Video Optimization | | WesleySmits
Some of these directories are not really good quality. For example:
http://dordrecht.cylex-bedrijvengids.nl/bedrijf/pizza-presto-dordrecht-12014914.html This domain is filled with ads in prominent locations. They have a domain authority of 44 and as far as i can tell there are close to 0 reviews on companies. (So not a very active community). When you perform SEO for a local business you want the business to be found in the local search results. Google goes around the web to see if the business information (contact and address information, website etcetera) is consistent on different local listing directories. The links from the directories are still links and therefor they pass a certain amount of PageRank. How much value do you think local listing directories such as the links i will provide below will add to a business? Do you think it is worth the time to find these small directory sites and fill in information about the business there or is your time better spent on other SEO activities? I would love to hear your input on this subject Links http://dordrecht.cylex-bedrijvengids.nl/bedrijf/rietveld-doe-het-zelf-j-10800715.html
http://adviesbureaus.zoekeensop.nl/0392908-parket-expertise-bureau-etten-leur/
http://www.allewinkels.net/ijzerwaren-en-gereedschap/rotterdam/henk-schell-ijzerwarenhuis/0 -
Blocking Google From Accessing Our Images - SEO Impact
We recently discovered that we were blocking Google from crawling our cdn, cdn.yournextshoes.com, where all our images are hosted. Unfortunately this went on for several months, and I wonder if this could explain our horrible SEO performance. Basically, I would like to know if this has impacted just our performance in Google Images (obviously our images have not been picked up by Google Images), or if our regular SEO has been impacted as well.Right now we're just receiving around 13% of our traffic from search, so we're trying to find out why Google does not like us.
Image & Video Optimization | | Jantaro0 -
Geo sitemap & google webmaster tools
Uploaded a Geo-sitemap last week and made sitemap_index.xml that includes the geo & normal sitemap. Google Webmaster tools shows a warning for the geo sitemap, telling me that the geo tag isn't supported. This is how the xml looks like: <urlset<span class="webkit-html-attribute"> xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"</urlset<span> xmlns:geo="http://www.google.com/geo/schemas/sitemap/1.0">http://www.mysite.com/locations.kmlgeo:format</geo:format>kmlSomebody, anybody knows the fix?
Image & Video Optimization | | nvs.nim0 -
Can different phone numbers affect your google places listing?
If you use a non-landline number e.g 0330 or 0845 etc does this affect your position within google places? Is it better to use a local number e.g 0208 (uk) And if you use a local number for your google places account but have a different number on your website will this have a negative effect?
Image & Video Optimization | | challen0 -
Links from Google Books
Hi Interested in your views on this and any references to research on the subject Using Google Books recently I have discovered multiple citations of a web site I produced years ago in a whole load of publication. Really quite touching to find these 10 years afterwards I imagine that this must have a positive effect on search engine listings for this site. The site has really good listings still. Has any research or any announcement been made by Google about this. Pushing this a bit further ; An advertising hoarding has a web site address http:// ... would Google StreetView pick this up and could it be used as a signal too ? Neil PS No I don't sell adversing hoardings 😉
Image & Video Optimization | | NeilInFrance0