Google Place Pages - Definitive Guide?

[Lakeside]

Hi good folk of SEOmoz,

I've recently updated a number of place pages for my client who is an estate agent.

I have to admit that they were a little keyword stuffed, but at the time my competitor; who ranks first, was filled with keywords.

For example in their title it states "[company name] estate agent [location]"

I thought that this was a big no-no and it should not be done?

They also have keywords stuffed into categories and description. Im confused on how they are getting away with this?

I have searched on the Google place page support forum and can not find a definitive guide on the exact rules.

Could anybody be so kind to help me out? i.e Where to put keywords and locations in the title and categories

Thankyou.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

It's probably not a good idea to do this sort of thing. Google can check place pages and descriptions and if you abuse the system, you'll get shot down

[Lakeside]

Thankyou Shelly,

I know this already and that's what has made me confused. They are abusing the system and yet they have not been penalised.

Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.

[PeterAlexLeigh]

I'm sure they will in due course

[evolvingSEO]

I think this is a definitive as it gets.

Also, its not too surprising they weren't caught stuffing keywords, I've seen that go unnoticed before.  What I do see getting penalized more is trying to list the same business in multiple locations, duplicate listings, that sort of thing.

[Lakeside]

Thankyou for this Dan,

I've read this before and bookmarked it actually, very informative.
I can see how the duplicate would flag up, we have 43 offices all over the country to try and maintain and all of their titles are the same e.g. [Estate Agent Name].

Is this wrong? Im wondering wether to include the city or location within the title.

Cheers

[evolvingSEO]

I believe the recommendation is to have the title only be strictly the business name (with no keywords in it.)  As long as all the offices are real locations and you've verified them either by phone or mail, I don't think that's ever been an issue.  You may want to do other things to differentiate the locations from one another, such as unique photos, unique names of staff members and so forth.  And if each location has its own page on your website that's even better.

-Dan