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.
Bing Places Listings for Real Estate Agents in the same office?
-
We've got a client that has a number of real estate agents that operate out of the same location. There are clear guidelines for how to approach this with Google My Business (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en) but I'm having no luck finding resources as it relates to Bing Places and individual practitioners. Does anyone have experience with this within Bing? Essentially the client wants to maintain the office itself as a location, and there are agents that want to create/claim pages that would utilize the same address.
Thanks
-
Hi Eric!
You are right on that Bing's guidelines are actually pretty similar to Google's. Just wanted to take a second to mention, though, that the practice of creating fictitious suite numbers is not recommended and not necessary. Back in the day, Google did have the worst time parsing out individual practitioners or businesses at a shared address, with merged listings often resulting. This is no longer the case; Google has really improved in being able to parse this out, provided practitioners follow some basic safety steps like obeying naming conventions, having unique phone numbers, choosing different categories and ensuring that each practitioner has his/her own landing page on the website.
The recommendation to create fictitious suite numbers stems from the days when merging was such an issue, affecting thousands (millions?) of medical practices, legal practices, real estate firms, etc. in their ability to list themselves properly on Google. But, these days, it's much more important to be sure that you're only listing a real-world address, and you can do so with pretty good confidence that Google will understand that lawyers A, B and C all work at 123 Main St, and that the listings won't merge, provided you've followed all the guidelines to the letter.
Hope it helps to know this, and I hope you'll keep participating as we all continue learning Local together - a never-ending process!
-
Hey There!
Yes, I so agree ... Bing's guidelines are very spare, but they do allow practitioner listings, just like Google. Here's an example in the wild:
Best practice: just as with Google, be sure you've got a unique phone number for each agent (not shared with the practice or any other agent) and be sure you're linking practitioner Bing Places to practitioner landing pages on the website. Also a good idea to not share categories, whenever possible.
I'm with you in wishing Bing's guidelines spelled things out more clearly, as Google's do.
-
Your best bet is to make sure you comply with Google's guidelines, the Bing guidelines are typically similar.
It also depends on how the business relationship is set up. If they're independent contractors of the company then it would be different than if they were employees of the company.
Generally speaking, we typically recommend setting up "suite numbers" for the business location, and those need to be clearly marked at the location. I have heard of cases where Google has looked to make sure that this is the case.
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
-
Google Listing Doesn't Appeare on 3Pack anymore
Hi, One of my GMB listing suddenly stopped ranking in the 3Pack Results. It used to always rank in 1st or 2nd position in the 3Pack results, Suddenly since 24th May it completely Flatlined, I don't know why but It doesn't show up in the results, or when I click see more. It completely vanished for that term locally. My Listing is based in Brisbane, QLD, Australia and it doesn't show up for that term in The Brisbane area. But when the Location info is Australia and not Brisbane, Australia it shows up again. I don't know what is the problem in this case... Any Suggestions will be much appreciated.
Local Listings | | Moxoms10 -
Tracking Phone Numbers in Google My Business Listings and Beyond
Hey all, Wanted to run something by you. I am getting pressed to use tracking phone numbers for all of our GMB pages for over 100 locations across the country. Has anyone done this for their own listings or for their clients? Because I will have to do it for GMB, this means I will be sending these same phone numbers out to the other major directories and data sources around the web. The phone numbers do contain the local area code for each city and do directly connect our customers to their specific location without any kind of redirecting. How is Google looking at this? I have read before it is a no-no but have also read it is not a big deal. Any thoughts would be much appreciated! -Ben
Local Listings | | Davey_Tree0 -
Duplicate central index listing
Hello Moz community I have a duplicate listing in Central Index (GB) and all communication channels seem unresponsive. I have emailed support and general sales. I even tried contacting them on their facebook account. I am stumped as to how I can get this duplicate listing removed as I have no control over it and the support is non-existent. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.
Local Listings | | Avid-Panda2 -
Disadvantages to Hiding Business Address on Google Places?
From a Local SEO standpoint, wouldn't hiding a business address on Google Places for Business create an SEO disadvantage in that I would expect in the local portion of the search results, there would be a bias to showing businesses that have not hidden their address as then you can place a pin on the map at the location? Or from a Local SEO standpoint does it not matter if you hide your address or not?
Local Listings | | Jazee1 -
"Duplicate" on Google Local - Attorney and Business Listing
For our law firm, we have a Google Local listing for the firm (Riddell Law LLC). Google also created a local listing for one of the attorneys (Riddell) (we didn't create it, but are in the process of verifying it). Both listings are at the same address. Moz Local says these are "duplicates" - is that true? Would Google penalize us for this? I am not sure how to fix it - both the individual attorney and the business are in fact at the same address. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!!
Local Listings | | bpurdue0 -
Google Places - Remove Completely vs. Permanently Closed?
This is a bit confusing to explain so bear with me please. We have a client that used to have an old law practice with a partner. The site and backlinks were very large and it had a lot of domain authority. It also had a very large citation profile and history. The two lawyers have since split, but there remains multiple Google Places listings out there for the old partnership. We have fixed the one showing the old business practice name, but not the one that he setup for his personal name. One of the biggest hassles is that the old location he setup has his attorney name in the actual listing. The issue is that we cannot close the old listing (we tried this), as it comes up permanently closed when you Google his name. If you search for his new Law Firm, the correct business listing that we have set up will show. The new listing also includes his name and has over 50 five star reviews. We hoped that the large amount of legitimate reviews would get rid of or at least suppress the old listing, but it is not happening. So I am a bit confused as to what to do. If we close the old listing Google shows the red "permanently closed" listing when you Google his name. We cannot update the old listing information to show his new address as then it will compete with the new listing that we setup that shows all the positive reviews. The old listing was not created by us, and the new one was. The new one shows when you search for his Law Firm name in Google, but not for his personal name i.e "NAME HERE ATTORNEY" or "HIS NAME and LOCATION" Interested to hear your thoughts. The only way I can think to fix this is to contact Google directly and see if there is a way to permanently delete the listing from Google maps, but I am not aware that this is possible.
Local Listings | | David-Kley0 -
How can I submit Baidu business listings if I live outside of China?
A client of our wants to manage business listings for three locations in China. We wanted to submit to Baidu but from what I've learned this is highly regulated (you live in China, pay a fee and call them to confirm). This is the only article I could find about submitting to Baidu: http://www.nanjingmarketinggroup.com/blog/baidu/how-can-baidu-maps-help-my-business Are there any conduit or 3rd party services available that can handle this? Thanks
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Benefits of a verified listing vs. unverified
Is there any additional benefit to claiming a business listing other than locking it from being edited? It would seem to me that as long as the business information is consistent and crawlable, the SEO value would be the same right?
Local Listings | | GSO0