Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey Bob, To make sure you are starting with a clean slate, you might have to clean the slate. I would first Google the 1. Name 2. Address 3. Phone Number Then claim and adjust anything that isn't consistent with your current nap. This includes variations of suite so "suite" "ste" "ste." "#" this will make sure that all the authority is passed to your site, and not a non-existent business. You can also check an accuracy report on Yext or GetListed.org. Then make sure moving forward you use the same info without the slightest variation. I would begin building citations first with the big data aggregators: Google, Infogroup, Localeze, Axciom, etc. Here are a few more resources: Great NAP guide by David Mihm- http://moz.com/blog/local-search-moving-locations How to Remove Duplicate Listings from Different Business Directories- http://www.ngsmarketing.com/how-to-remove-duplicate-listings-from-different-business-directories/ How long websites take to update- https://getlisted.org/static/resources/listing_time_to_live.pdf

That #RCS talk was awesome!  Thanks a bunch for that recommendation.  We've really worked hard on this with the client and they are fully on board with RCS - the CEO built the company on it.  Very interestingly, I had not considered the brand consolidation strategy (asking for a link back from lifted website content).  We are definitely excited about using that as a new outlet for link building, allowing others to do the work for us organically.

I figured, but was hoping for some off the wall genius!

(providing you are the first to be crawled and indexed/noted with this content) I am quite certain that first to be crawled/indexed does not determine who gets the rankings - or even who will appear in the SERPs without being hit by filters or Panda problems.  The more powerful sites who are publishing the content often get the rankings or survive the filters and Panada. If you want to avoid this problem put that essential content on an image.  Then add enough additional content to make a substantive page.  Require your resellers to use that image if you don't want them to have Panda problems or be filtered on duplicate content. Then add enough additional content to the pages to make it substantive enough for Google to index and rank.

I agree with Linda above. The service areas setting can cause a lot of issues. Specifically, if you didn't hide your address, your listing might be removed: Don't receive customers at your location? Serve customers at their location? Select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option within your dashboard — if you don't hide your address, your listing may be removed from Google Maps. https://support.google.com/places/answer/177103?hl=en Also: If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option. https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en&ref_topic=1656880 I'm not sure that this is still the case. In my experience working with law firms, we've found the most success not using the service area(s) settings.

Cheers. I'd love some of your 'golden nuggets' please!

Thanks Thomas

I believe we have that for headquarters, but I will check. Thank you!

Hi David, This is an odd one, I agree. Obviously, proximity of the searcher to the business in question contributes to what ranks where, but what you are experiencing with office A showing when you are in town B and and office B showing when you're in town A is new to me. If only one of the offices was showing when you were searching from both towns, I would suggest that that location is being judged by Google to be of premium importance, regardless of location. I've seen that happen before. But I don't have an answer for the phenomenon you have described. It's like Google has it backwards! My suggestion: start a thread about this in either the Google and Your Business Forum or the Google MapMaker forum and see if you can get either a Google Top Contributor or MapMaker RER to escalate the issue to a Google staffer. *You'll have to cross your fingers on this. I can't guarantee you'll receive a response, but the issue is problematic enough for your customers to deserve an explanation, in my opinion. I would title your post something like: Results Sending Customers To 2 Opposite Locations, Despite Proximity Of Searcher. Then, show exactly what you are experiencing and be prepared to share the full account details. If you do get an answer from a Google staffer, I would certainly be interested in hearing what they say. Most problems in Local SEO come up over and over again, but this is a new one for me and I'd like to know if you learn anything.

Hey AJ, I am forwarding this along to our engineering department.  We'll take a look on Monday & let you know about the 'unable to contact' errors. As far as Moz in particular, we're not really a brick-and-mortar company, so Local Listings are not (and shouldn't be) a priority for our marketing department.  Having said that, my associate Miriam Ellis is working on a guide to claiming listings for our Portland office as we speak, to practice what we preach :).  That should be out later this summer. Thanks for commenting! David Mihm Director of Local Search Strategy, Moz

That's great to hear, Leo, and we are so glad to have you here!

Totally! What a great article. So glad to be able to share it here, Anthony.

Thanks Linda I'll check that out. Robert

Thank you for your feedback..

Hi Matthew, I can understand the temptation to keep a good thing going, but if the good thing is stemming from a violation of Google's Places Quality Guidelines, then the business is running big risks by letting it ride. I'd be very wary of any violation. Cheers - Miriam

If the video is useful for visitors to those pages and elsewise, the copy on those pages is unique, there's no problem putting the video on all the pages.

Hi, Allow me to join your discussion. I just want to make sure I understand it as it is. It will be fine if I have the following images on a single page? For example: Image:Alt pizza-buffet-01.jpg:Pizza Buffet 1 pizza-buffet-02.jpg:Pizza Buffet 2 pizza-buffet-03.jpg:Pizza Buffet 3 pizza-buffet-04.jpg:Pizza Buffet 4 Thank you!

Hi Katie - You are one of several people I've seen raise this very question about analytics. The answer is - we don't know yet how this will affect data. It's a really good question! Stay tuned and I am sure there will be an avalanche of posts about this all over the web over the next couple of months. Right now, what seems clear to me is: having a really good photo is critical in the carousel; some businesses are coming up with a Google Map instead of a photo and that certainly looks generic. having your citations in good shape are really important, because once someone clicks on the image, everything below the carousel looks like some form of a citation to me you still need to do everything you've already been doing in terms of having a strong website, a clean Google+ Local listing, reviews and citations. Beyond this, the next few weeks will point out strategy changes, if any, for local business owners to be aware of. This is going to be quite a ride!

Hi Web Talent, If you managed to get direct support from Google on this, there is a chance you could hang onto your reviews, but I wouldn't count on it. Reviews are so flighty. Reviews are supposed to be associated with a specific location, so I would like to think they would stick to the listing, but having watched review issues run rampant for years, I would call them the most unpredictable facet of Google's local product.

I've been experiencing connection time out issues on and off for the last 2 months. Also, when I can get logged in, I often run into errors trying to delete a listing or update a listing. Sometimes it is a time-out error again and sometimes it just says it cannot process my request at this time. Another frustrating issue is it takes 2 months for pending listings to be published.