Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google My Business Locations Query- Do I need unqiue Picture File Names for every location
-
Hello All,
I am just in the process of updating all my google business locations for each of my depots. I have been uploading photos but I am wondering if the file names of the photo's need to be unique for every location ?
I know I need to describe the picture in the filename so it's good use of keywords but I am wondering if google will see it as spaming if I upload the same product pictures etc to ever google business location ?
thanks
Pete
-
Hey Pete,
It's a great question, and I'd love it if someone with a case study would chime in here, but I've never seen one done on this topic (would make a great blog post if you had proof one way or the other, huh?).
In my experience, I've not seen shared photos between listings have any noticeable negative impact on listings, nor can I see that having unique images has had a positive impact, but as I've said, I've never done a side-by-side study of this or seen one published.
The only reason I can imagine for fearing a negative impact of this would be increasing a risk of merging between multi-location business listings, but I strongly doubt Google uses image file names as a differential factor. So, I really wouldn't be concerned about this.
I'll also add ... I've been a participant in Local Search Ranking Factors since year 1 and I've never seen this cited as a strongly-felt negative or positive ranking factor.
So, bottom line, my gut feeling is that if this comes into play in any way, it is so minor that no one has documented it.
Looking at this from a non-ranking perspective, however, we can make the argument that unique photos might positively affect conversions. Let's say your client is a realtor. If he puts the same 5 generic images of houses across every single Google+ Local listing his company has, the impact might be less local feeling for human visitors than if, say, his San Francisco branch shows some of those famous city Victorians while his Palm Springs page shows some classic Mission-style houses. Some industries may have stronger visual queues than others - so there is likely some grey area here. What I would say, in conclusion, is that I would consider Google+ Local photos from a usability/conversion perspective more carefully than I would from an SEO perspective.
I know I've seen discussions on fora of how images on Google+ Local pages may influence conversions, but I'm not finding any easy-to-hand. This might be worth your researching further. I hope you'll get more feedback from our community, too:)
-
I have had the exact same question. I work primarily with franchise companies that have multiple locations that offer the same services, so this question has been on my mind for a while.
I currently use the same photos for the most part on each of the franchise location's G+ listings, Yelp, CitySearch, etc., without changing the image file names. I have been doing it this way for years and haven't ever seen a negative impact, but would be curious to know if there is potential upside to using unique file names for each image in each location.
Would love to hear what others' opinions are on this topic.
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
-
New business / content marketing
Hi all SEO experts, if a website is brand new, so published in the last 3 months- new domain name and website design. We have rebranded recently, using a new domain as entered new business partnership, there doesn’t seem to be much guidance on this at all, from various SEO websites, so our question is would you delay publishing new blog posts / content marketing as frequently because the company website is brand new? So would SEO’s decrease the frequency of publication of blog posts, because the website is new? Or perhaps it does not matter, and would still post every week as you would if the website has been live for a long time? So, in nutshell, what we are wondering is, is the “Google Sandbox” still in use?
Local SEO | | Ryan070 -
How Do You Think My Local SEO Multi-location Geotargeting Strategy Will Work?
I have a question. I just got a full-time job at Zavza Seal, an upstanding insulation contractor targeting neighborhoods of Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York. I was hired as an SEO content specialist. (Thanks Rand! You're one of my mentors~!) So, they handed me a spreadsheet of pages for city-specific terms, and they had a system in place for local rankings. But I was taught to do service-specific city pages a certain way. If the search term is for people looking for a service in that town, that's what you give them. However, I was told to proofread them, and as an SEO specialist, I couldn't keep my hands off of them. The pages were skimpy. (Example: h2, paragraph, bullets, short paragraph summary, short paragraph about the city.) What threw me off is that the content, while it was service specific, it was blog topics localized. Those are great (when long enough and optimized to compete in SERPs) but I've never seen them done on service pages. (Example: Why is Mold Remediation Necessary in Baldwin?. Now, this went in two directions in my mind. (and I wanted to do the best for the company, because I'm a wicked brat for teams, AND I get commissions on leads, so that was motivation, too.) 🐷 Anyway, 1. This could be a new approach and worthy of an SEO study on my startup site, where I take on part time clients after work, because I've never seen it done before and it could, if optimized for the target service and city rank high in SERPs AND build thought leadership and authority as a local expert. (Whereas city service pages in standard format would just promote your service. ..) What do you guys think? I just put the topic up for discussion for my team, asked them about it in detail and asked if they wanted to A'/B test a few to see what get's better traction organically. Mr. Fishkin was one of my mentors. I really wish I just had his number for this one LOL.
Local SEO | | ThisTimeWereOn0 -
How to rank in Google against a business with the same name?
My client has a coworking space in London, but shares its name with a recruitment company also in London. When searching for my client's brand name, they don't appear anywhere on the first page as this recruitment company dominates. How can I rank prominently for my brand term if there is someone else in these top spots who isn't a direct competitor (in the typical sense)? Thank you!
Local SEO | | WhitewallGlasgow0 -
Google for Jobs, Dublin, Ireland market
Hi Moz fans, I face an issue with Google for Jobs, Dublin, Ireland market.
Local SEO | | Mª Verónica B.
My client, a local job agency lose rank, his posts appear mediated by other big job companies who have high DA, over 60, client has less than 30 DA.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance. Mª Verónica1 -
How important is citations for an online business?
If you run an online business, just how important is citation building? Our client does not want to disclose her physical home address from where she operates and the campaign does not consist of any local keywords. Should we then focus on link building and growing the site's DA instead? As well as getting onpage elements optimised. Many thanks in advance for your input!
Local SEO | | Gavo0 -
Google cache is showing the wrong URL with CCTLD's
Hi Folks, At Lightspeed we decided to setup local websites with CCtld's. Momentarily we have issues with the Google cache. I'm not sure what's going wrong. For example if I check the Google cache of www.lightspeedhq.be in the Belgium Google it refers to www.lightspeedhq.nl. See link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fm0XIZ8sEe8J:https://www.lightspeedhq.be/+&cd=2&hl=nl&ct=clnk&gl=be We have the same problem for our www.lightspeedhq.co.uk website, which is referring to www.lightspeedhq.com: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OXdAIIFa7AYJ:https://www.lightspeedhq.co.uk/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk Does Google sees it as duplicate content? Or don't we have to use 'Alternative Hreflang'? A week ago we changed our canonical links which were actually randomly referring from .be > .nl and .co.uk to .com. What can we do now to make sure all is properly indexed? Best, Ruud
Local SEO | | Ruudst0 -
Local Search - Google Mobile Results (Web&App)
Hi, I have a client with multiple locations. One of the locations manager is searching for branded and non-branded keywords on his mobile phone and not able to locate the business (within the parking lot of the location). Our ranking reports via a local search platform and manual checks indicate the location is actually ranking well. and we're seeing progress in GA. Has anyone deal with something like this before? This is a location that recently opened to the public. The concern is around mobile web and app results. I'm looking for some guidance around how to approach the situation. I'm sorry I cannot provide more details on the client.
Local SEO | | burnseo0 -
Two websites, same business name, same NAP
Hi, A client of mine offers loft conversions and wants to make a go of it. So he has a website dedicated to loft conversions. He is also a joiner/carpenter and has another old website which offers general joinery work and insurance work. Both websites have the same business name and same address and phone number. There is only one Google place page for the loft conversions website. The loft conversions website is not ranking as well as we would like locally. Could it be due to the same NAP? What are the best options? Redirect the old website to the loft conversions one (he might not like that idea) Change the address and phone number on one website?(and all subsequent citations?) Would love some help on this!
Local SEO | | AL123al0