Concerned about cannibalization for local SEO results. Should we move some of our location pages to a subdomain?
-
Currently we are providing local SEO recommendations for a well known pharmacy chain. Like most major brands they enjoy multiple organic (not just 3 pack results) listings when people search for local phrases such as "Dallas pharmacy clinics'".
The issue is that all these listings are coming from the same domain page. We are seeing multiple listings both branded and non-branded search queries.
Our concern is that Google will someday decide to choose one listing as the most authoritative and nix the rest of the local listings which will reduce their first page search engine saturation. To maintain first page saturation we are considering recommending to the client that they move some of their location listings
to a subdomain (different IP address) to avoid a Google "clean up". Please note that our client is certainly not using any "doorway" pages but some of these are very scarce on content. They do not have an issue with duplicate content either.By using subdomains could we help maintain our client's first page saturation? Any links to articles would be much appreciated.
-
Hi Rosemary,
Thanks for the clarification. For a pharmacy chain (or any other franchise) here is what would typically be appropriate:
-
You have a single website.This website has some basic pages like home, about, specials, contact and what have you.
-
In addition to this, you build a unique page of high quality for each of your locations. I don't recommend subdomains. I recommend subfolders. So, this would look like: thepharmacy.com/sugar-land for your store in Sugar Land Texas, and thepharmacy.com/dallas, for your store in Dallas. If you have more than one location in a city like Dallas, your URLs might look like thepharmacy.com/dallas-deep-ellum and thepharmacy.com/dallas-highland-park. Put the complete contact info (NAP) at the top of each page and then create strong content to make the pages interesting, helpful and unique.
-
From your Sugar Land citations, across the web, be sure you are linking to the landing page you've created on the site for Sugar Land, ditto for Dallas citations, etc.
This would be considered a standard methodology for any multi-location business.
How you then showcase these pages on the website needs to be dictated by the number of locations you have. You want them to be easy to find. You might check out a chain like REI.com. Look at how they are surfacing locations for their users and how they are making their pages unique. They do a good job!
Hope this helps!
-
-
Thanks for the detailed response and questions Miriam. Just to be clear I am not referring to "listings" but organic search results for individual store locations. Would have just one additional subdomain with store listings (and different content of course) be appropriate for our client? Our client does have local Google, Bing and Yahoo! business listings for each store location.
-
Hey Rosemary,
Sometimes, local lingo can be a bit of an obstacle in having a clear conversation. I want to be sure I understand what you are saying here when you are talking about 'listings'. To me, a listing is a citation - such as your Google+ Local listing, your Yelp listing, your Bing Places listing, etc. I believe you may be talking about city landing pages on your website, instead. Is this what you are describing:
-
You have a multi-location business with physical offices in various locales?
-
You do not have a strong page on the website for each of these offices? Instead, all of your search engine results, including local pack rankings and organic rankings, are pointing to your home page?
-
You have a unique set of citations for each physical office? You have a Google+ Local page for each, a Bing listing for each, a Best of the Web listing for each, a Yelp listing for each, etc?
Is this all correct? Please, provide as much detail as would be helpful.
-
-
Since you are talking about specific location-related results, my guess is that there is no much use in trying to have many local pages for the purpose of "flooding" Google results. If somebody searches for "Hyperlinks Media Houston", then Google will serve the results for Houston only and won't serve other locations pages. Therefore the placement of those pages doesn't really matter.
-
These are unique pages showing up in the subfolders. However all of these listings are still from the same domain (same IP address). Some of these extra listings are not that important, however they are nice to have for first page saturation reasons. We were thinking of moving these lesser important pages to a subdomain since they are on a different IP address.
-
Hello, there.
_"The issue is that all these listings are coming from the same domain page" _- It is an issue, indeed. My recommendation would be to create unique pages (I wouldn't go with subdomains, I think that's just too much for each location. At the same time make sure that you have all locations in local directories. This will help Google not to "nix" the results.
I'd say look how big companies do it - let's say Apple and do the same way.
About links - https://mza.seotoolninja.com/learn/local - good guide.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Google Knowledge Graph Missing Telephone Information/Multiple Locations
Does anyone have experience correcting the Google branded knowledge graph for a local listing? We have an issue with the knowledge graph not displaying telephone numbers on a clients local knowledge graph panel in the SERPs (for desktop searches). We manage over 1,500 local listings for the same company and the majority of those listings display telephone numbers on the right hand side of the branded knowledge graph panel. However, a handful do not display a telephone number. If you click through the map section of the knowledge graph panel, into the Google Maps/Google My Business page the numbers are listed, they are just not showing up on the knowledge graph panel in the SERPs. The local numbers are listed on the Google My Business page. Does anyone have any experience with this and can recommend what other items we should check for that could help get the numbers to show up on the on the knowledge graph panel in the SERPs? Thanks for the help!
Local Listings | | lunavista-comm0 -
How Far is Too Far to Show Up in Local Results
Hi everyone, I have one client that is located about 45 minutes (25 miles) outside of a large city and I can't seem to help them rank within that large city. They're a relatively new business in the service industry (meaning they'll travel to an individual's residence) and in the surrounding cities closer to their physical location, they rank extremely well. In this large city, they have 3 keywords in the top 10, 2 snack pack rankings and then everything else is below 51! I have a feeling that distance depends on many things, but I am wondering if anyone has ever figured out how far away is **too far **to be considered local by Google. My feeling is that sure it would be nice to rank locally for this large city as it would open them up to a really large customer pool, but that maybe 45 minutes away is just not local (I know I personally don't consider that "local"). Again, I understand that ranking locally depends on a really wide range of factors, but I'm considering only distance in this question. Thanks so much!
Local Listings | | KaitlinNS0 -
Local Profile Struggling
Hi guys, we have a client that we are having some issues with. We have done extensive directory work for them, so this is unusual. Their Google My Business profile isn't ranking hardly at all, although they have decent organic rankings. Here is the company: https://plus.google.com/+ComfortAireHeatingCoolingPlumbingWisconsinRapids/about We have two possible reasons, but before we spend the time fixing these we were hoping for some reassurance from the Moz community. 1)Name in GMB looks spammy. This truly is their name, but we thought it may be an issue due to the keywords. 2)Address inconsistency: The client wanted us to use 880 Highway 73 South, Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494 so that is how we submitted it to aggregators and directory sites. Google didn't accept that, they changed it to: 880 WI-73 Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494. The USPS Zip code checker didn't accept either of these, they use 880 STATE HIGHWAY 73 S, WISCONSIN RAPIDS WI 54494. Do you guys think one of these is our issue, or could it be something else. Thanks in advance for your insights!
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
Second location
Hello Moz Community, I have a client that is about to open up a second location. The website is optimized for his current location, should I convert his current site (Wordpress) into a Multi-Site Wordpress and convert the homepage to a directory for both locations with each location essentially having it's own website? If I go this route, I believe I'm going to drop in rankings on his current site since his location homepage url will change (example.com will change to ---> example.com/location-one) also there will have to be a lot of work as far as going through all citations and changing the url's on them. The other way I was thinking is just leaving the site as is and still converting the wordpress site to multisite, but not creating a directory page and just creating a new site for his new location. What do you feel is the best approach or if you guys have a better idea I would love to hear it.
Local Listings | | keywordwizzard0 -
Google Services for our Multiple Entities with Multiple Locations
I need to know what is the better practice for us. We have long had one Google account for our four businesses. It was easy to manage GA, Adwords, WMT and until recently - Places. My places account is not transferred to the new My Business Locations, but I am having trouble with a few items and I am wondering if it would be better to have each of our business take on their own unique Google accounts. If I did that, would I be able to transfer GA and other ownership or would I lose all my existing data? Should I just wait to see what my listings are when i get transferred and then worry?
Local Listings | | KJ-Rodgers0 -
Question about onsite NAP as it relates to Local Search
Hi Gang, State requirements mandate that our law practice (Keller & Keller) properly display their distinct business entities on all advertising materials, including our website. Specifically, our offices are set up in a way that makes Indiana's law office an LLP, New Mexico's an LLC, and Michigan's a PLLC. All 3 offices/states are represented on a single domain, but I want to be careful about mixing the different registration titles (LLP, LLC, PLLC) throughout our site when we commonly refer to ourselves simply as Keller & Keller throughout the main pages and in our content. I worry it may negatively affect our local listings? (One idea is to place a simple 'disclaimer' in the footer throughout our site that identifies the business entities, however, I'm still concerned this too might affect/confuse our local listings?) All thoughts, advice, and theories are welcome! Thanks, everyone! (And to my fellow Yanks, enjoy a safe Memorial Day weekend!) W-
Local Listings | | Wayne760 -
Convert Google Plus page to Business page
I have a google plus page for my company edspire.com, https://plus.google.com/b/107395030190889162381/107395030190889162381/posts When I created it I don't think I set it up as a business so I'd like to convert to one. As far as I can see it is not possible to do this. What is the recommended process, do I just create a new one and migrate content over or is there some way to merge them? Should I then delete the old one or is it helpful to keep double posting? Thanks, Jim
Local Listings | | yojimbo230 -
Local Listing Question for Vet Office
We have done the off-page directory listings work for a veterinary office (submitting to the main data-aggregators, as well as sites such as CitySearch/Manta/Yelp) & now want to supplement those with submissions for each individual doctor. There are 8 doctors at their practice. The plan was to submit them to only 3 sites - the main data-aggregators of LocalEze, ExpressUpdateUSA & Factual. They only have one phone number (their main number) to use for listings. So can we submit the doctors all with the same number? Or is that a total waste of time b/c listings will end up being duplicated/merged down the road? What do you recommend that we do?
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120