Does the location of a citation on a page have any relivance?
-
We have been working on local SEO quite a lot for our small business, trying to understand why we are consistantly outranked by our competators. I understand there are many factors at play here.
I realize that DA & PA, Places page optimization, and on page optimization also play a role, but for the purpose of this question i would like to focus on just one factor: citations.
From your experiance with local SEO do you find that a citation that is located closer to the top of the page holds more weight than a citation buried further down a page?
Here is an example:
http://www.yellowpages.ca/search/si/1/Storage-Self+Service/Toronto+ON/in this case the people paying for the priority positions on that page are right at the top of the page, rather than buried 5 pages into the results. in fact they are right at the top of each page of the results, so over and over again they are above the free listings.
I have heard that google considers the value of a link based on its position on the page. So would it be safe to assume that google also considers the value of a citation based on its position on the page?
Thank you for your time,
Storwell -
I have been enjoying your comments more and more. It is very clear you are reading great articles and expanding your knowledge every day.
I had not read the article you shared before now. I enjoyed it very much.
Matt Cutt's video is from Aug 2009. He shared that originally links were treated equally but Google's link analysis was growing and becoming more sophisticated. The article you referenced was written Mar 27, 2010.
This type of article is exactly why I am a member here at SEOmoz. That article represents the thorough work and analysis of SEO experts on the valuation of links. It's a great article. I am not 100% confident in their findings, but they are very logical and I will accept them and incorporate them in my future efforts.
So it appears you answered your own question, and thank you for taking the time to share the results.
-
that is not exactly what i got from reading this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
-
In short, most links on a page have equal value. Google does reserve the right to weigh links, but overall I have not seen any indication that links at the top of a page are weighed higher then a link at the bottom of a page.
A recently noted exception would be links in footers. Matt Cutts talks about footer links and you can also see how potentially links in the main content area can be worth more then links on sidebars in the future.
-
Doesn't this completely contradict Google's motivations?
It seems that if this was the case, then google could easily be gamed by purchasing position on all these local directories. Wouldn't this be the opposite of what google wants?
In the case of links, google does their very best to ignore paid links.
Why would they turn around and give benefit to paid citations?
-
Not only are they above the free listings but they are on every page at the top. Thus citing your example of 5 pages they would have 5 citations; Where a free listing would only appear on one.
In addition, Google has a crawl budget - how long they spend on a site and page. If these limits are reached there is a possibility that the lower listings don't get crawled or acknowledged especially if they are buried deep into the navigation levels of a site.
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
-
High Domain and Page trust link building
What is the best way to build backlinks from high domain and page trust sites?
Image & Video Optimization | | WeissToyota0 -
Good Example of Local Pages With Multiple Services
Can I get a site that is well optimized and has a good landing page for a business that serves multiple regions with multiple services. For example they may have construction and mold removal services and serve Indianapolis, Columbus Ohio, Louisville Ky.
Image & Video Optimization | | Atomicx0 -
What are some strategies to outrank your retailers who use the same page content as you?
I do not want to piss off our retailers by complaining about copyright infringement for product content, so what are some ways to outrank them using the same content???
Image & Video Optimization | | odegi0 -
Off-Page Local SEO for a Home-Based Businesses?
What are some ideas for optimizing for off-page local SEO when you're working with home-based businesses that don't necessarily want to share their physical address, and using a PO box is not an option for major local SEO directories?
Image & Video Optimization | | Inturact0 -
Google Local Page Not Showing in Search Results
Hi! I am having an issue with our business's Google+/Local/Places/whatever-the-heck-you-call-it-these-days page not showing up in search results. I work for a company called Nexxtep Technology Services. We are located in Valdosta, GA. We have a Google+ page that's filled out nicely and I would love it if it would show up next to the search results when you search "nexxtep technology services" or "nexxtep valdosta" in Google. For some reason, it does not. I have a feeling what might be a source of the issue...we have developed and hosted websites for clients, and we used to put a link to our site in the footer. Now, I know that's not a good thing to do. We don't do that anymore, and I have since removed those links from existing sites. I removed them almost 6 weeks ago now. Should I give Google a little more time to crawl these sites again? Any guidance would be tremendously appreciated. Thank you for your help!
Image & Video Optimization | | nexxtep0 -
Google+ Places Page Showing Wrong Information
Hi There, I have a client who's runs three nuseries (pre schools) A, B and C and has three differen googe+ pages all with different addresses so no problem there. However I noticed that if I clicked on on of them in the Google places account settings listing A would show the details of listing B and not it's own. Thinking this was a glitch I deleted listing A and was about to set up another one. I entered the phone number and it brought up the details to the listing B as sharing the same phone number. Is this is what's causing the issue? Can businesses share the same phone number in the same locality and have two different listings, despite having two different addresses? Kind Regards Neil
Image & Video Optimization | | jmaycock0 -
Local Search Citations
Hi Is there a checker where it will show what local citation sites a Google Places listing has? My listing has been claimed on the likes of Yelp, Qype etc but I doubt if the others above me have as they have not even claimed their places account The reason being is that it can only be the local citations that is causing the following listing - or if there is anything else I would be interested to learn what it is? http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?hl=en&safe=active&prmd=imvns&resnum=5&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1280&bih=828&wrapid=tlif132205140339110&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=chartered+accountants+swansea&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=chartered+accountants&hnear=0x486e45555a4e97b1:0x3d77128e2fe7cb74,Swansea,+Neath+Port+Talbot&cid=7535215611406218142&ei=T-fMTvTbC4zA8QOpwLz6Dw&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=2&ved=0CEIQ4gkwAQ to appear above http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=chartered%20accountants%20swansea&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CG8QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harrisbassett.co.uk%2Fcontact-harris-bassett.htm&ei=BufMToaLEtTY8QPQ9JjXDw&usg=AFQjCNHH86xx6pmUJ2BBODG_LGHeSL7RYg on a search for chartered accountants swansea
Image & Video Optimization | | idv0 -
Does position in local directories effect google detecting citations?
There are a lot of local directories that i have seen google pull citations from. Quite often i see people putting listings in these directories prefixed by several "A"s, so that they will appear on the first page of the list. Just how deep does google crawl through the pages of these lists? will google actually crawl through all the pages? Some of these directories offer paid listings that appear at the top of the directory. We have been considering purchasing some of these paid positions, so that google would be more likely to pickup our citations. In one case i have noticed a directory: shopincities.com do something that spiked my interest. Basically, if you start clicking through the different pages of a category, the site will block you after 3 or 4 pages in. It serves you an error saying that you are not human. In my mind this is to prevent google from fully crawling their whole list, so that the people who pay for the top positions are picked up, and the people who don't pay, even though their profiles are listed there, never get crawled by google. So would you pay for position on these directories? here are some examples: http://www.shopincities.com
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg
http://www.411.ca
http://www.goldbook.com
http://www.n49.ca
http://torontodirect.com
http://www.yellowpages.com Or would you just throw a whole bunch of A's infront of your business name so you appear on the first page of listings? Or do you belive it doesn't matter how deep you are in the listings, and with enough time google will find it regardless and credit it as a citation?0