No Appearance in Local pack - group practice favored
-
Hi,
One client has a website, Google My Business etc of his own. He ranks ok to good locally for search terms.
However, his entry simply won't show up within the local n-pack (where it objectively should) and also does not appear in the map. It seems to me that instead a group practice with a colleague that has both their names in its name/title. (Moreover, it is in the same spot - they decided to go with different websites and entries of their own, though.) For some reason, this practice is also connected to the ranking website of our client.
I suppose (NAP problems and previously used phone tracking numbers aside) that this group practice essentially blocks the real client-entry from appearing. Has anybody made such experiences?
(My provisional ToDo would look like: Disconnect the group practice from the client's website; erase/merge it if possible; do proper LocalSEO otherwise.)
Regards
Nico
-
Hey Nico,
Hate to say it, but this sounds like a serious mess. If there are multiple websites sharing partial or complete NAP and phone numbers being held hostage by third parties, I think:
-
You need a formal audit from a heavy-hitting Local SEO agency to find all of the problems.
-
Even with that, unless you have the authority and green light to launch a massive cleanup, involving all doctors and the practice, your hands may be tied here.
This is one of those really difficult situations one sometimes wades into without realizing the depth of the pool. What you are describing sounds like a very large project, but a good agency can tackle large projects methodically, one step at a time. What is the real concern here is the mention of legal problems and phone numbers being held hostage. There's not going to be a simple solution for this, and it may be that the company needs to work out its internal matters before any SEO team can help them
-
-
Hi,
Thanks for your valuable advice! I fear, due to factors outside my influence, it is a little more complicated.
- AFAIK the group practice still exists ... at least technically.
- It does have a website with a (very) good and fitting domain name that is slightly more than a placeholder.
- Its G+ Page is basically empty.
- There is a Facebook Page for the group practice.
- There is legal dispute(!) about the ownership of the domain and in connection with the group practice. Unfortunately, this limits my actions quite strongly.
- Both their practices are still part of the same Clinic. (Before, they shared a practice at a different location.) The clinic is not important for me.
- The telephone number listed with the group practice goes to the other doctor. I assume that this is a major point of trouble - as above, I probably have currently no way to influence this.
- So: Is there anything I can do if telephone numbers ARE wrong but lead to somebody who has no interest in surrendering those phone numbers or having the entries changed?
- (a former duplicate GMB entry for the client has already been resolved)
- sameAs: thanks for the reminder! I indeed forgot this tiny bit when doing the complete schema.org suite on the website (to good effect, btw.)
- Both doctors have different domains now ... and the one group practice domain; the GMB entry is connected to the Website of Doctor A, though.
So again, thanks for your hints!
Nico
-
Hi Nico,
In addition to the good advice from Phillip, I recommend looking carefully at the following:
-
No shared phone numbers.
-
A unique page on the website for each doctor, to which each GMB listing links. Main practice can link to homepage.
-
Try not to share categories between the listings. Give the practice the most important category and find others for the individual practitioners.
-
-
I just went through something very recently that was similar, my doctor left a practice and started his own. His name continued to rank at the old practice (even when the only trace of his name left was in a title tag).
We did a few things:
- Complete separation of GMB pages. The pages were very specific for the location and the doctor. We then tied these to specific location pages instead of homepage.
- Checked all citations / NAP out in the web and updated them to the respective doctor's locations. We had a similar issue, number/ names etc., were not consistent.
- Used SameAs Schema on their contact page to the GMB page (https://schema.org/sameAs) along with the usual Schema for their location / profession.
End result is that depending on the search location and slight variance of the terms, they will both rank in the 3 pack / map.
Our biggest hurdle was one of their GMB pages was deleted and showed them as permanently closed. This caused a lot of issues for mobile users looking for phone numbers and directions.
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
-
How do I rank for a different business categories on google local?
Hello, How do I appear on the local listings for google in different categories or services that I offer? For instance, we're a physical therapy clinic by trade but we specialize in orthopedics, sports medicine, and lower back pain. Thus, how do I rank on google local for these types of services? Currently, we rank for physical therapy but we also miss out on a big part of our business by not ranking for these listings on local. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Scott
Local Listings | | scottgray06200 -
Is Local Search Data Included in Google Search Console?
Is local search data Included in Google Search Console? Or is it only in Google My Business? I'm having a hard time distinguishing what exactly is included in Google Search Console's reporting.
Local Listings | | DigitalMarketingSEO1 -
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 -
Local sites to make sure I'm listed in - which ones?
I'd love to know what sites this community deems most important when looking at whether my business & site are listed there. I know the obvious - Google Places, Yahoo Maps, Bing Local, Yelp. Foursquare. What others do you consider to be "mission critical" to the general market? Thanks!
Local Listings | | wcksmith10 -
New Local Search Results Appearance/Rankings?
Hi everybody! My team and I are all noticing a new layout for local search results. We just noticed it today. Mobile and desktop results appear to be affected. Specifically, we are looking at searches like "event spaces in Richmond" and "restaurants in Raleigh" as 2 examples. The listings appear differently in the SERPs, and the top results really are not relevant to the search queries. Is anybody noticing anything similar, or does anyone have any insight into whether this is something Google is testing or if it's here to stay? Also, any advice for overcoming rankings drops as a result of these changes? Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | TriMarkDigital0 -
Local SEO and Sites by Order of Opinion?
Okay, so we were just having a discussion about which sites/directories are the most important to be listed in for Local SEO. Ultimately we were looking to 'sort' these by order of importance for the typical local business. Google My Business Yelp Yahoo! Local Bing Local Foursquare YellowPages.com SuperPages.com CitySearch HotFrog How would you order them? Would you add anything to the list? Thanks!
Local Listings | | ClickMonsterIM1 -
How to do Local SEO for few cities in US while client is in Canada
Hi, How i can do the local SEO for few cities of US however client is Canada based. Client want to promote his business in US ( specific cities). Kindly suggest how it will be posible as client do not have address in US. Cheers!!
Local Listings | | 1akal0