Local citations - domain or business name

[MickEdwards]

I have a bit of a tricky situation with a client where there is some history with old domains.  But this is the current situation which I need to stick to:

Business name (all made up) is Acme Print

• 2 live websites - acme-niche(dot)com  and productsandservices(dot)com
• Third website acmeprint(dot)com is live and owned by an old partner, different NAP.

acme-niche(dot)com  and productsandservices(dot)com share the same NAP.  Not much traffic and a bit of a poor domain profile for acme-niche(dot)com, so suggest just using productsandservices(dot)com.  Also acme-niche(dot)com would be a bit misleading for use for the whole business in any case.

However, all content for productsandservices(dot)com refers to Acme Print.  Because of all the confusion should we keep the productsandservices(dot)com referring to Acme Print throughout, or update with new productsandservices(dot)com logo, mention that it is a trading name of Acme Print and refer to the trading domain name throughout the content.

I want to know the best option for listings and citations - the trading name which is a domain name or Acme Print?  I've not worked with a local site where domain name and business name and a separate business with domain are mixed up.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael,

Citations are based on physical location. Are you saying that there is a single physical location being represented by 3 different websites and that your customer does not own the website that accurately represents the real brand (Acme Print.com)?

[MattRoney]

Hi Michael! Are you able to provide the information that Miriam is asking for? It sounds like it'd help her get you a good answer.

[MickEdwards]

I'm sorry for my late reply, i've been off the radar these past days, work and bug.

Well, 2 shared the same address, with the third at a different address which is not directly owned and the closest to the brand.  Actually the 3rd domain is a plural.

We've got hold of the singular, which was available (can't believe they didn't have that amongst all the variations they've got kicking around!). It's a bit difficult to explain exactly what I mean but I don't want to post the URLS.  The EMD is to be moved to this new domain, with acme-niche(dot)com redirected to it (or just shut down).

So now we will have one good core domain that is the brand with another domain out there with a different NAP but using the same logo (and to all intents and purposes appearing to be the same business).  So I think we are working on trying to get this other site to change the logo and distance itself.

Does this sound reasonable?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael,

Yes, this is a bit complicated. Ideally, you'd have just 1 website for the business, but if you have to have 2, be sure there is no connection between the two. No shared NAP, no shared content, etc. It would need to be run as a completely separate business to avoid the danger of NAP confusion.