Practice Name vs. Dr. Name in Local Search

[BedeFahey]

I wanted to get some opinions on an interesting situation for local search.

Many doctors and dentists are found in one of two ways online:

1. Their name and title, e.g. Dr. James A. Smith, MD

2. Their practice name, e.g Smith Plastic Surgery, P.C

Often sites like Healthgrades are providing data on the doctor him or herself, and the information can be tough to switch out. At the same time, there's a tendancy on the Dr's part to want to be listed as their practice name. Their site is often set up that way.

How are you handling this kind of setup? Have you found a way to reliably associate (and format) a practice and doctor's name in a listing, in such a way that doesn't violate Google's quality guidelines?

I know the drill for handling a doctor within a hospital, but this is a slightly different situation...

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bede,

So, because of this from the Google Places Quality Guidelines:

Individual practitioners may be listed individually as long as those practitioners are public-facing within their parent organization. Common examples of such practitioners are doctors, dentists, lawyers, and real estate agents. The practitioner should be directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours. A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations.

...essentially, what you are dealing with is 2 listings: one of the doctor's name and one for the practice name. There isn't a way (that I know of) to combine them all into one, but as Google allows you to have the separate listings, then basically, a client like this has 2 ranking opportunities, 2 citation building opportunities, etc.

Does this make sense, or am I not getting to the heart of your question? Please, let me know.

[BedeFahey]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for the response. You are making sense.

Your suggestion about it being two different opportunities is a completely different way of looking at it that I had not thought of. I was approaching it from the mindset of "Split or duplicate listings bad. One listing good."

What are your thoughts on how much crossover or confusion a double listing approach might create? I like the idea from a higher-level perspective. I do wonder if the fact that the business address and phone number are identical for each listing, while the names are somewhat similar (e.g. James A. Smith and Smith Plastic Surgery), might cause problems.

Cheers,

Bede

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bede,

Unfortunately, yes, there is some concern about odd, buggy merges whenever this multiple practitioner approach is taken, but, as Google allows it, you have good ground to stand upon if troubles arise. Mike Blumenthal says that Google is getting better about this, and I value his opinion highly.

One thing to be sure of is that you are using totally different categories for the two different Google Places/+ Local listings. In other words, the categories of the doctor must be different than the categories of the practice.

Hope this helps! Good luck, Bede.

[BedeFahey]

That makes sense, Thanks Miriam!