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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.
Hi Nathan,
I recommend going with USPS version. I use SmartyStreets.com to look these up. Also, recommend you check out Nyagoslav Zhekov's recent post on acceptable NAP:
http://www.whitespark.ca/acceptable-google-maps-nap-abbreviations-and-variations
Hi Joshua,
Yes, this warning from Google is still relevant:
Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
So, what you are describing with a block of geo terms/zip codes on a single page would fall under this heading. I would advise finding a better way of featuring this info.
Regarding neighborhoods, recommend that you read: http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid
Hi Charlie,
I'm sorry you haven't yet received any feedback yet on this question. Mike Blumenthal's writing on this topic (which you've already read) is as much as I personally know about on this, having never personally implemented a call tracking strategy for a local business. I'm hoping someone in our community will still reach out to you on this, but it may be that having read what you've read, you know as much as most folks on this topic. It may be you'll need to experiment to learn more.
Hi Joanna,
Yes - I would still recommend creating a unique page on your site for each location out of which you operate, and making maximum effort to ensure that the content on each page is unique and helpful.
Hi Max,
For a tool like Moz OSE, it's a matter of depth that is likely preventing us from crawling through directories' millions of pages to find just one link on your particular listing on such a site. This does not meant that the links in your citations do not count as links - just that a crawl may not find them. Also, important to mention that the key point of building citations is not links - it's about ensuring that your business NAP is available and consistent on a variety of platforms. This makes you accessible to your customers and also strengthens search engines' 'belief' in the validity of your data.
Hi! If you don't yet have the clients in place to create this type of content, then you don't really yet have a reason to create it. While you're building up your client base in the other cities, some other ideas might be finding opportunities to network in these other cities. Perhaps attending Chamber of Commerce meetings, hosting or attending workshops in these other cities or finding other opportunities for building relationships within these communities that you can then write about. Until then, your pages would by necessity be blank and you don't want blank pages on your site.
If you're talking about a retail business, it's the same thing. The fact that customers in cities B, C and D drive to city A to shop isn't really a compelling reason to develop content. Your other customers will not be interested in this. You have to discover whether you have some more real/interesting connection between the business and the other communities. For example a retail toy store might host a gaming event in city B, sponsor a little league team in city C, etc. Finding ways to become locally involved where your customers live builds relationships that you can then showcase on your website/blog.
Hi There!
I just responded over on your other thread, but wanted to include think link for you to a thread I started when Google announced their doorway pages update:
http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/how-google-s-doorway-pages-update-affects-local-seo
I hope you'll find that helpful!
Hey There!
Good topic! It's my personal feeling that Google's doorway pages update will mainly affect thin, duplicate content that doesn't have a very good reason for existing. I think the scenario you are describing could well fall under that heading if your competitors are taking a weak approach to the task of developing city landing pages. Some thoughts:
I can see the sense, if you have many clients, in breaking them up via city onto different showcase pages, but I would like to see more than just images on these pages. Project descriptions, customer testimonials, maybe even some unique content about the most powerful industries in that city could go far toward making these pages of value to human users, showing them your company's good work with neighboring businesses they recognize.
I think you need to do a gut check to draw a line about where you might be going overboard on this. If you are a boutique agency located in 1 city and taking clients in 9 other nearby cities, I could see it as a reasonable goal to create 10 really excellent pages with unique, interesting content on them. But, if you are a virtual business and want to create 50, 100, 5,000 pages like this to cover every city in the state or country (and I've seen this approach!) I find it less reasonable to imagine that the content is going to be unique and valuable to human users. Not saying that it's impossible, if you have big resources - just that it's less likely. So, you need to see what feels right to you; Google isn't giving us a cutoff point to work with about this. It's up to each of us to see what feels authentic and what feels like an obvious, painful grab for the SERPs, right?
I would not recommend putting these links in the footer, regardless of the strength of the pages. I would recommend including them in your main navigation menu. Even if the pages are great, it's my belief that Google expects spammy stuff in footers and you don't want to be accidentally lumped in with that crowd. If your pages are super, show them off in your menu with pride and leave the footer for your physical NAP, contact us link, copyright and other basics like that.
This would be my take on how to approach this. I get that you're seeing your competitors' doing things a certain way, and maybe they've all produced fantastic content for those footer-linked city pages, but if there's any chance that they haven't, you doing a better job could wind up being a competitive advantage.
Google prefers local phone numbers that connect directly to the place of business, but in recent times, they have allowed toll free numbers into their system. You can read the guidelines here:
Hmm .. yes, I'm able to replicate that following your steps in Maps, but when you actually click through to the reviews, these bolds are gone. Honestly, I have no idea what they are doing there in the review snippets (as in your screenshot). They don't have anything to do with the search term. Looking at a nearby laundromat in Buffalo, I don't see the same behavior:
So - sorry, but I'm just not sure what those bolds represent. If anyone else has come across this, please chime in!
Hi Rich!
Good discussion going on here, and many thanks to Alick for surfacing an older response of mine. If you can get a local phone number for each business, that will be your best bet against what would be the chief worry in this scenario - that Google will believe this is really just one business promoting itself as two businesses.
I have become less of a fan of suite numbers in recent times, as Google has become more capable of handling multiple businesses at the same location. So, currently, what I would recommend would be this:
Assess internally whether this truly is 2 businesses, or whether it is really just 1 business offering both in-studio and remote lessons. I think this step is really important, as the basic product (music lessons) is the same for both businesses and the best-known scenario in which Google has trouble with multiple businesses occupying the same location is when they share an industry or when a single business is trying to branch out its services to appear like multiple businesses. They have gotten better about understanding shared locations (lots of doctors in one building, etc.) but there is a potential for 2 music lesson businesses in the same home being flagged as suspicious. Just like if an HVAC company wanted to represent its heating services as one business and its air conditioning services as another. Google does not support his approach at any time. There may be nuances to the 2 business models of which I'm unaware that make it appropriate to promote this as two companies, but at a glance, to me this sounds like one company with both studio and at-home services.
If you determine that there is, indeed, reason to view these as distinct companies, then unique phone numbers, unique websites and unique citations would be the way to go with this ... with the proviso that you have notified the business owner that there may be a measure of risk in this approach.
Hope this helps!
Hi Tom!
Normally, I see bolded text in reviews when it replicates part of my search term. It sounds like you are saying the bolded text in your results does not replicate any of the words in your search. Can you share your exact search term so that the community can look at the live result instead of a screenshot? Might help. Thanks!
Hey Rod,
This is Google's def. of Doorway Pages: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721311
If you read through that carefully, I think the conclusion you may draw is that the difference between what Google is describing as a doorway page and what you may hear Local SEOs referring to as 'local landing pages' or 'city landing pages' or what have you, would be uniqueness and quality. This is my reading of this, anyway.
If you are going to create landing pages, as in the case of a local business serving multiple cities, I would suggest making maximum effort to ensure that each page is a thorough, unique, stand-alone resource for visitors. Don't throw up a bunch of thin, similar pages. Go for uniqueness and high quality. Hope this helps.
Hey Rod,
I'm trying to understand what this service does. I looked up a random business in it and it simply seems to be giving a sense of how the business is listed on Google. I'm not seeing actual landing pages. Is there something particular that you are looking at on this site that concerns you in regards to doorway pages?
Hmm... that link is redirecting me to a homepage.