Multiple Sites, Different Names, Same Business. Gray Hat?!
-
Hey there, Mozzers! I need your help.
I have a new client whose new site just went live. Today, I started the process of cleaning up their business listings throughout the web. To my surprise, I noticed that a lot of the directories already had a website domain included. I called my client to find out what was going on. Turns out they already have a site with another company, targeting the same keywords. I came across this site before during competitive analysis, but never put two and two together since it has a different name, phone number and branding (logo, color scheme, etc.). I asked if he was willing to change the link to his new site (the one we're doing SEO for), and he flat out said no. He knows the site is doing well in the SERPs and doesn't want to harm its rankings. sigh
His advice? Create new listings for his 2nd location. This location has a different physical address and phone number (no toll free/shared). But I feel like this is wrong. It's the same business, but we're trying to pass as another company just to get 2 sites to the top of the SERPs. This might also confuse users.
What do I do? Plus, does that mean we should only include the 2nd location on the site we created and not the 1st? I already have a disadvantage since all the quality link juice is going to the other site. smh
I need y'alls advice, please!
-Kanya
-
You are so right, Miriam! I informed my superior of the consequences of moving forward, but it seems like they're going with Situation B anyway. Oh, well. Thanks for the advice, though - you're awesome!
-
Wonderful. Thanks, Ryan!
-
Good discussion going on here, and agree with Ryan 100% about informing the business owner of the risks he is taking and, if you choose to continue serving this business, structuring the contract so that you are not responsible for negative outcomes.
One of the major risks I would discuss with the client is this, at least the way I am understanding what you've described.
-
The business had a site and built citations for it at location A.
-
The business then had you build a second site covering locations A and B and wants you to build citations for business B.
If this is correct, the trouble is that the business now has TWO websites representing the location of Business A and this is pretty much guaranteed to cause holy heck on Google's end. Google wants to find a single authoritative website representing each physical location (each Google+ Local page). Finding 2 authoritative websites representing location A is going to cause confusion and could water down the authority this client has built for business A, decreasing the benefits he's earned. The client needs to hear this.
Ideally what should be happening here is that:
A) The customer fully separates out his two businesses, legally. He runs 2 different companies out of 2 different offices with no connection between them. He runs 2 different websites and supports them with 2 unique citation sets. This would be the above-board, risk-free approach.
B) If the customer will not do this, then I agree that he is making a poor choice in trying to make a single company seem like 2 different businesses, doubtless for SEO purposes. I see trouble ahead for the business if this is their approach to marketing. It's possible that you could continue to work on the site you built, removing ALL references to the location of business A and only building citations for location B, but without knowing all of the nuances of this, it seems pretty iffy to me.
I totally sympathize with the pickle you're in on this, not having realized what the company was doing before you developed their new website. You could choose to walk away from the contract if you are not comfortable moving forward. I'd personally be tempted to do so, if the client refused to act on my marketing advice regarding this. At the very least, the one thing you have learned from this is to structure into your initial client discovery form questions regarding all sites they currently own. This is a hard way to learn this - but an important lesson, for sure.
-
-
Thanks Kanya. That makes more sense. I would inform the client of the risks, restructure the contract to address those risks, then move ahead as though it is a completely different and non-client business.
In addition to the risks of some sites not wanting to list both businesses (I'm guessing that when people answer the phones from either one they say, "KM Realty") the other site would pretty much fall under the realm of competition if you're only contracted to work on the new site. From that perspective you're obviously not engaged in trying to affect it negatively, but you are trying to rank the new site as highly as possible which could in turn cause the old site to rank lower.
If the client wants you to perform a balancing act between the two, the contract should likely include both sites. Cheers!
-
Hi Felip3,
Thanks for your response. I see where you're coming from, but, to use your example, Wal-Mart & Sams are separate entities. On our end, both sites are for the exact same business. I'm not judging in any way. I just want to make sure I don't something that'll hurt either site.
-
Hi Ryan!
The website we created is supposed to represent the business as a whole (they're a real estate brokerage company), not just one location. I'll elaborate a little (using fictitious names, of course).
Site #1: Domain is TexasRealtyForSale.com. This site has its own logo with "Texas Realty For Sale" on it. There is no physical address information, just a phone number and contact form. Ranking very well for many keywords (e.g., texas real estate for sale).
Site #2 (the one our agency created): Domain is KMrealty.com (close to actual business name). We included their actual logo, phone number and two locations (separate cities). We targeting similar keywords.
When you search for "KM realty," they pop up in several directories and other sites (e.g., YP, citysearch, etc.). The website listed in these directories is TexasRealtyForSale.com.
I asked them if I could change the link to point to our new site (for SEO purposes), but he said no. Since Site #1 is doing very well, he doesn't want to change anything. The issue is: we were contracted to do SEO, as well. I had no idea they were associated with TexasRealtyForSale.com (they never mentioned anything beforehand).
Hopefully this makes more sense!
-
I think that's just a business decision that the owner took that has nothing to do with SEO. He wants to business under 2 different names and build two brands, which makes sense on the business side because he can have one brand to target public A and another brand to target public B.
There are many cases where competitors company are own by the same group or person, for example, Walt-Mart and Sam's Club. There is nothing wrong on trying to dominate the whole market that's how capitalism works.
In my opinion, you were hired to build the second brand SEO and is not your job to judge his business decisions or complain because the other brand that he owns already have good links.
-
Hi Kanya. Just to clarify, you're saying that this new site is going to represent a new store? And that the new store has a different phone, location, name and domain name? To some degree it sounds like it would fall under the franchise model when doing local listings... Yet it also sounds like they sites and stores are trying to be different enough that a customer wouldn't know that they are owned by the same person if they visited either a physical location or the site. Ultimately it sounds like more cost and work for the owner, but if they're willing to differentiate that much between stores, it sounds that's part of their overall model. Still, a few more details would help. Cheers!
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
-
Local Search - can I use a shortened company name
Can I use a shortened version of our company name for local search or does it need to match the name registered at companies house exactly?
Local Listings | | paulfoz16090 -
Google My Business Question
I work for a large organization with a number of locations. There is a Google My Business listing for us, under our umbrella name, that lists an old address (building we no longer occupy) and says that we are "permanently closed". I believe this is an unverified listing because there is an "own this listing?" link in it. In order to take control of the listing, Google gives us three options: call, text or snail mail. The number is an automated line so calling and texting aren't going to work and snail mail wouldn't work b/c we're no longer in the building. Anyone know how we can take control of this listing so that it doesn't look like we're "permanently closed?"
Local Listings | | yaelslater0 -
How do I treat multiple buildings on the same college campus on Google for local SEO?
Should I delete them? Simply give them a different address like "City, State, Zip"? I see the benefit of having key buildings on campus in Google Maps, but I don't want those to affect my accuracy score and, thus, my local rankings for SEO.
Local Listings | | GabeGibitz1 -
How does Google Local Insights report impressions for multiple mappack listings (same company) showing up for one query?
I had a client ask me a difficult question about impression reporting via Google Local Insights. Lets say a client is a popular ice cream chain and somebody does a local brand search for "San Francisco Exotic Tasty Ice" and three locations for the same company all show up in the Google Local Pack. Does each one of these locations receive their own impression via Google Local Insights? Or does Google just count this as one impression for one location altogether? Logically speaking I would think that each location would get its own impression in the insights report. However I'm wondering if there is anything to negate that. Any feedback is appreciated.
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Would two telephone numbers on a website affect NAP consistency? One is the "actual" business number with Schema, the other is a call tracking number.
Hello! I have two telephone numbers listed on a website - one is the "actual" business number and is utilizing proper schema, while the other is a call tracking number featured more prominently on the site (both in the header and above the "actual" business number in the footer). The code looks like this: New Patients: 999-555-5555 Current Patients: 555-555-5555 Does Google prioritize the "actual" business number because it has the proper schema on it? Or would the call tracking number still be counted and affect NAP consistency for Local SEO? Thanks!
Local Listings | | nowmedia11 -
Non-www or www from outside links to my site?
I'm new on SEO and recently redid this my website. This website is a local business that just sell around my city, so I started linking the website on listing sites. I found one directory that didn't allow me to add a non-www, so I change on every listing site or directory to www, It seems you can get your google ranking harmed if there is variations to access your website.I know that everything will arrive on the same page no matter I have a non-www or www, but the Website is Hosted on Godaddy and it seems that they don't use the www version even if you want. So my domain is non-www. On the other hand I just have been notified that google webmaster tools couldn't verify my account and I did it again and is verified now. Cheking again on WMT, it doesn't show the previous links that were under "Links to Your Site" it just show "no data available". Here in MOZ it show different results between non-www and www Why is this happening? What should I do? And in which way my google ranking can be affected by this?
Local Listings | | Brumas0 -
Local Rankings for Second Business Location in the SAME City
I have an issue regarding local rankings for multiple locations within the SAME city, and I'm hoping to start a productive discussion about the various options for helping a second location gain visibility in the local pack. Here's the context…My business is an electronic cigarette shop in New Orleans, called Crescent City Vape. Our first location (Uptown) opened up a year ago and ranks very well in the local-pack as well as organic results for target keywords, as well as brand terms. Our second location opened up 2 months ago, also in New Orleans (Lower Garden District), about 3 miles away from the first shop. This shop, however, is not visible locally or organically, unless we get extremely specific with a branded search query like "Crescent City Vape Lower Garden District" or "Crescent City Vape St. Charles Ave." It does not rank locally for "Crescent City Vape" or "Crescent City Vape New Orleans" We have one website: crescentcityvape.com -- and both shops have a location landing page on the main site: crescentcityvape.com/uptown
Local Listings | | djreich
crescentcityvape.com/lower-garden However, when we launched our local SEO work for the first shop, we used the homepage as the URL in Google+ Local, as well as all of our citations. When we launched the second shop, we used the location landing page as the URL for G+ and all of our citations. We also added a location modifier to the business name on G+ Local: Crescent City Vape - Lower Garden District Both shops have 5+ reviews on Google+ Local, and both shops have citation profiles that are better than any other competitor. I'm confident that the local SEO basics are covered…and this is evident from the solid local and organic rankings for the original shop. My concern isn't that the second shop is ranking worse than the first. I expected this. But I am very concerned that the second shop doesn't even rank for a branded search like "Crescent City Vape." You have to get unrealistically specific with local descriptors to see the G+ local result for the second shop. e.g. "Crescent City Vape Lower Garden District". Here are some of the options and questions I've been pondering. Would love anyone's thoughts on what's worth trying and what might be too risky…since obviously I do not want to sacrifice rankings for the original shop. Changing the G+ URL of the second shop to the homepage (rather than that local landing page). In this case, G+ pages for both locations would link to the homepage. Then updating Moz Local and other citations accordingly with the URL as the homepage. My concern is that this will end up hurting rankings for the original shop more than helping rankings for the second shop. Removing the location modifier from the second shop's Google+ Local business name. When you google "Starbucks" or "McDonalds" you get a local-pack that usually includes 3 of their locations in the pack, and none have location modifiers. I'm wondering if the modifier is sending the wrong signal, because right now, when you Google "Crescent City Vape" only the original location shows up with a local result. Changing the modifier for the second shop's Google+ Local business name to something like "Crescent City Vape: New Orleans E-Cigs". Some of our competitors have added keywords to their G+ names and it's been effective for them. I know this is not aligned with Google guidelines, and may be a risky play. We don't have anything to lose with the second location if we try this…However, is there any chance this would negatively affect our original shop's rankings (since it's the same domain)? If we went in this direction, should I update our citations accordingly? And build new ones with this new "name"? Does page authority of the business URL have an impact on G+ Local rankings? i.e. would building quality links to the local landing page have much of an impact? i.e. is that a productive use of time and resources, as opposed to promoting the homepage and other more important landing pages? Appreciate your thoughts and feedback! Hopefully this discussion will be helpful for other businesses trying to rank for more than one location in the same city. Thanks!0