Marie,

Since the links are pointed at a different domain that 301s to their site, would removing the 301 (killing the domain) be sufficient or do they still need to file a disavow?

Tom Waddington (one of the smartest people I know) pointed out, most of the spammy backlinks are pointing to a domain (reliant-plumbing.com) that is redirecting to your site.  Why don't you kill that domain (make it 404) and see if it fixes this?

I believe I found the problem on why they rank nowhere organically (not in the top 100) and it's likely hurting their local ranking as well outside their immediate area.  They have 97 referring domains with the anchor text "austin plumbers" and another 91 with "austin plumber".  The sites appear to be a giant PBN.  I'd suggest they do a very thorough link audit and file a disavow.

Hey GrueBleenAgency,

What tool are you using to track rankings?  Do you have the tool set to search from "austin" or from a specific zip code?  The reason why I ask is that searching from a city has been known to return really innacurate results since Google almost always knows the zip code of the searcher (usually about 90% of the time) so they don't default to a city, they default to a zip code or sometimes a very precise location if the person is using mobile.

Have you actually seen a decline in traffic or impressions according to GMB Insights?

I do actually get you for "austin plumber" when I search from your location as first in the local pack.  Organically you are way down but it's because Google is listing your emergency plumbing page which is a much weaker page vs your homepage.  Looking at the title tags, both your homepage and your emergency page are optimized for extremely similar keywords so I'd try and differentiate this more.  I'd optimize the homepage for generic plumbing terms (plumber, plumber near me) and make sure all references to emergency link to the emergency page.  Some solid internal linking will help here too.

Using the Local Falcon, it shows you ranking as expected and I have a strong suspicion you didn't actually have a ranking drop on the local pack end but just need to update the settings on the ranking tracker to make sure you're not searching on a city-level.

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/3904914/1a5bb0a17deab2755bf9f579048e93a9

Ben,

If your goal is to replace every single phone number online with the tracking number, that's fine.  In my experience it is almost impossible to keep the old phone number from re-populating since it's published in offline sources (like the phone book).

What I was recommending would be good if you wanted to isolate/track JUST the calls from GMB.

I've never tried it for Bing so I'm not 100% sure.  I would not suggest doing this on Yelp.

Hey Ben,

There is a secret to doing this that won't mess up your NAP consistency or ranking.  What you need to do is move the "real" phone number to the secondary phone line inside Google My Business and then use the tracking number in the main phone number slot.

Whatever you do, don't use the tracking numbers on any other 3rd party citations.

I definitely would not put these in the footer.  Marie Haynes has a very good article on footer links that I normally reference: https://www.mariehaynes.com/footer-links-and-penalties/

Like Roman said, links in the footer don't offer much value anyway and put the site at risk for looking low-quality.

Depending on the scenario, it could help because it would cause Google to read your address before anything else and if you're a local business, that could help gain relevance.  This is one of those things that should be super easy to test so I'll add it to my bucket list of items to test out.

If you have evidence, feel free to add it here and I can send it over to Google.  They remove reviews for businesses that do this provided there is proof of it.

I definitely would not put these in the footer.  Marie Haynes has a very good article on footer links that I normally reference: https://www.mariehaynes.com/footer-links-and-penalties/

Like Roman said, links in the footer don't offer much value anyway and put the site at risk for looking low-quality.

Unfortunately like Miriam stated your business won't be eligible for a local listing anymore but since the office did exist there at some point, Google won't remove it and they will apply the "permanently closed" label to it. I'll check in with Google to see if there is anything else that can be done and let you know. This isn't the first time I've run into a scenario like this.

Hey Nathan,

Sorry this took so long. Our backlog is pretty long but Google got back to me yesterday to let me know they removed the listing all together

Hey Ben,

There is a secret to doing this that won't mess up your NAP consistency or ranking.  What you need to do is move the "real" phone number to the secondary phone line inside Google My Business and then use the tracking number in the main phone number slot.

Whatever you do, don't use the tracking numbers on any other 3rd party citations.

Depending on the scenario, it could help because it would cause Google to read your address before anything else and if you're a local business, that could help gain relevance.  This is one of those things that should be super easy to test so I'll add it to my bucket list of items to test out.

Nathan,

Weird - I have no idea where I would update my settings to allow PMs.  Maybe Miriam knows

There isn't anything wrong with creating multiple "city-pages" on your website targeting different city names.  Just be careful, because if there isn't enough unique content on them that is valuable to the user, they could be labeled as Doorway Pages, which are against Google's guidelines.  Phil Rozek has a great guide full of ideas for content for these pages.

What is not allowed is creating multiple listings for the same business in Google My Business. Google will remove the listings if they catch them and can possibly suspend the user's account as well.  Using addresses of relatives to create these listings would also be against Google's guidelines and would be defined as a fake listing.

I would only suggest creating multiple subpages for the location if they are targeting different keywords (products/services).  For example, if you have a location for an insurance agent then it might make sense to have 2 subpages, one targeting auto insurance and another targeting home insurance.  However, if the location just really offers one service, like a hotel, then it doesn't make sense.  I've seen chains do this and often Google only ever ranks the main location page and not the subpage because they are all targeting the exact same thing and the content is almost the same.

In case they ask, what was the address exactly?  Was it a storefront, an office space where you worked, or just a residential address you used to list as a service area business?

Perfect. I updated my preferences.  I'll let you know when I hear back from Google on this.

Ben,

If your goal is to replace every single phone number online with the tracking number, that's fine.  In my experience it is almost impossible to keep the old phone number from re-populating since it's published in offline sources (like the phone book).

What I was recommending would be good if you wanted to isolate/track JUST the calls from GMB.