Google Places listings showing for businesses in different states.
-
Hi Moz Community
I have a client with 4 x active Google Place listings in different locations all within in the same state of Australia (Western Australia) and all with the business name 'Crawford Realty' as per Google place guidelines.
When searching for 'Crawford Realty' Google returns listings for real estate agents near a town called Crawford in a state called Queensland which is across the other side of the country.
See screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/43p6LdtW
Does anyone know why my Western Australian business listings wouldn't be showing when searching in Western Australia and why the listings for a town in Queensland, across the other side of the country would be showing.
Thanks in advance,
Freddy
-
Thanks Marcus! Appreciate the feedback!!
-
Nice answers on this thread, guys. This is certainly an interesting scenario - one in which the legal name of a business includes a geographic term. I'm sure this occurs all the time, but this is actually the first time I've ever seen it brought up, believe it or not. Suggests that multi-location businesses should, perhaps, not name themselves after a city. If your small business is planning to expand into a franchise, maybe you should pick a less geo-centric name. Food for thought.
-
Hey Freddy
I think Vadim has pretty much nailed this but let me see if I can expand on that a little for you.
Most terms are not 100% specific and Google has to interpret what they believe the user is looking for. There is some context (location of searcher) but they don't have complete certainty in what the user is looking for.
Here is an example: When someone searches for 'marcus miller' I would like to think they are looking for me. Unfortunately, 99.9% of searches for 'Marcus Miller' are going to be for the super cool jazz composer / musician and not the super cool geeky SEO from Birmingham UK.
So, lets review this search term 'Crawford Realty'
What are the possible interpretations of this term?
- A business called 'Crawford Realty'
- Reality businesses in a place called Crawford
So, Google hedges their bets and shows the business called 'Crawford Realty' and a list of realty companies in the location called Crawford.
So, why are Google not showing your local listings here?
If the interpretation is for a brand name or a business type in a given location you are not fitting both of those descriptions. If someone searched for your business type + a location where you have an office then that would be a good fit for a localised result for your business.
So, if I search:
real estate Karratha
or
realty karratha
Then I find your local business offices in the local results as we would expect. On page two but they are there:
https://plus.google.com/116505937244694341152/about?gl=uk&hl=en
_Unclaimed I may add so there is certainly some work to be done here! _
Summary
Google has to take a search term and try to understand what the intent is beyond that term and the truth is 50% may be using the term to search for one thing and 50% for another. They have other elements of context such as searcher location but they attempt to serve up results that work for both sets of users. In this case I would imagine they believe that the higher percentage are looking for the business by it's brand name so you get the first listing.
Beyond that your business does come up on a location by location basis when folks search for the location + business area.
Hope that helps!
Marcusrealty location A
-
Hi Freddy,
Google thinks that by entering Crawford you are entering the city + Realty therefore those results.
Searches for Crawford Reality + location , as in Western Australia, or even for me just Australia, would return normal results as in this case google interprets the search query as business name + location, vs city + business type as above.
Does that help
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
-
Missing Google verification
I just went to check my client sites in Google search console and noticed a whole bunch of them no longer 'verified'. They were all previously verified. Why would they suddenly change status to 'not verified'? Does this affect anything (eg. search analytics data flowing through to GA)? Does this mean I have to verify all over again?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Google WMT/search console showing thousands of links in "Internal Links"
Hi, One of our blog-post has been interlinked with thousands of internal links as per search console; but lists only 2 links it got connected from. How come so many links it got connected internally? I don't see any. Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Showing specific info just for our own IP. May google consider this cloaking?
I want to show some additional info on our website that will only be visible to the IP address of our office. Do I need to be concerned that google may consider this cloaking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Did Reviews still have the same value in Google places ranking?
I have two questions relating to Reviews. 1. Reviews still add value to Google places ranking. 2. I have a page and two clients posted reviews for me.They all get removed after 3,4 days.What is wrong with Google?Did they consider them fake?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csfarnsworth0 -
Question about Google Search Results
I have a question regarding google search results. I have a website www.911signalusa.com when you type this into google search box the URL comes up repeatedly. I have several competitors here is one of them www.emergencycity.com when you type in their name it only come up as the first result. How did our SEO guys make this happen? I have another site tha when we type in the URL it only comes up as the first result. However when you do site:www.------.com All of these site are indexed in Google. It is not causing any problem we knoe of but it appears to me that our 1 site has it better? Or is it that maybe there are very minimal links to the site? Thank you for your time and consideration in answering my quesiton.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | scamper0 -
Does Google check Whois
Hello everyone, I own quite a lot of website active in the same niche and sometimes targeting the same keywords, these sites are hosted at different IP's. But they all have the same Whois details, i was wondering if Google checks the Whois-data? And if it affects the serp's? Regards, Yannick
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iwebdevnl0 -
Google places page related places links to competitor
I noticed on a lot of Google places pages i create for my clients Google seems to put related places links at the bottom of the page which links directly to their competitors. how can i remove control or avoid these links been placed? Also any tips on improving the places page would be greatly appreciated thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bristolweb0 -
Getting a site to rank in both google.com and google.co.uk
I have a client who runs a yacht delivery company. He gets business from the US and the UK but due to the nature of his business, he isn't really based anywhere except in the middle of the ocean somewhere! His site is hosted in the US, and it's a .com. I haven't set any geographical targeting in webmaster tools either. We're starting to get some rankings in google US, but very little in google UK. It's a small site anyway, and he'd prefer not to have too much content on the site saying he's UK based as he's not really based anywhere. Any ideas on how best to approach this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PerchDigital0