Latest Questions
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How are you all handling temporary closings on GMB?
Hello Daniel, You are right - this is an unusual time for all of us, and local businesses are facing some real challenges. If you need to temporarily close your location, contact Google via twitter at @GoogleMyBiz. Mike Blumenthal reported on the 16th that Google will be pushing out a "temporarily closed" label on businesses that local and state governments have ordered to close. Other areas of your GMB listing you can use to push out info about the changes include: Hours of operation Google Posts Description Google Q&A (remember, you can write questions AND answer them as the business owner, but you can't apparently mention COVID-19 in this area.) For restaurants, Google is apparently allowing them to edit their business name to state that they are offering takeout. I recommend reading this post from Darren Shaw for more ideas: https://whitespark.ca/blog/keeping-gmb-accurate-during-covid19-pandemic/ I hope this helps, and I'm wishing you well.
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis2 -
Is it good idea to use special characters in Meta Tags?
Hard to say as it depends. I would test it on a few pages and see if it can drive any uplift compared to your standardized META tags. That way you have some actual proof instead of trying to reverse engineer it.
On-Page / Site Optimization | | Martijn_Scheijbeler0 -
When will Google and moz make changes?
Hi there, Sam from Moz's Help Team here! So, Moz's Spam Score is actually the percentage of sites with similar features we've found to be penalized or banned by Google** (it's not based on the spam score of the sites linking to you).** To improve this score I would recommend reading our guide which explains the 27 factors used to make up this score. You can then look at your site and investigate areas you would like to improve on your site: https://moz.com/help/link-explorer/link-building/spam-score Disavowing a link doesn't take it away so they will still appear as backlinks to your site within the Moz tools. The fact that Google disregards them in relation to your site does not take them off the sites they are on, so best practice is to approach the webmaster first and request the link be removed if possible. Best of luck, and let me know if I can help with anything else!
Moz Local | | samantha.chapman0 -
Https://www.fitness-china.com/pilates-equipment How to find the most relevant internal link pages
Hi there, You need to crawl your site to see all internal links within your site. Ross
On-Page / Site Optimization | | RossKernez0 -
Which route is best for a SEO URL?
Hey Frances! Good question here. Most likely, the best solution is to host the content on a subdirectory of the same root domain ( www.mysite.com/mylove). You're right that if you create a new domains, you will need to build links/authority/trust to a completely new domain. This may make it more difficult for the page to compete in the SERPs. Keeping the same root domain will allow you to leverage any authority you've built.
Technical SEO Issues | | GFD_Chris0 -
Google My Business - Service Area - Use Zip Codes or City Names?
Hello There! I'm so sorry it took me a couple of days to respond on this. I have two pieces of advice for this: Remember that however you choose to set your service area, it will likely have no effect on your rankings. SAB settings have never been demonstrated to impact rank. What you do choose should properly reflect the service area for that particular location of your business. I find it easiest just to list the service cities and, unless you have some specific case for doing otherwise, that may be easiest for you, too. So, for example, if my bakery is in Berkeley, CA and delivers to Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond and Daly City, then those are the cities I would select. I wouldn't add extra cities just because Google allows it. I would just be accurate in reflecting where I deliver. Then, if I had a second Bakery in Ukiah, CA that delivers to Redwood Valley, El Largo and Calpella, I'd select those cities for that listing. And, of course, please be certain that any listing you are creating for an SAB business model meets Google's guidelines https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en. Please let me know if you have any further questions. I'm happy to tell you anything I know.
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis0 -
Creating a subdomain or subdirectory for each major city for our main website...
I'm also facing the same problem in my website ranking. Can you give me a solution?
Link Building | | areebtahir10 -
GMB Account Fallen Off Rankings in past 24 hours
Thank you for bringing your question to the forum, Daniel. Likely, what you will need to do is a full competitive audit (for which you can find some guidance here: https://moz.com/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit) to discover why your business is being outranked by a competitor. My glance at this here in the forum can't replace an audit, but I will take a look and jot down some notes about what I see. 1. You mention that you were previously in the 3 pack for "escape room Chicago" but on March 10, you dropped. Looking from my location on the West Coast on March 16, I see you are at position #10 in Google's local finder (the mapped results you see when you click on the 3-pack for more info). So, you haven't disappeared altogether, but you have definitely fallen at least 7 spots since you last enjoyed your 3 pack ranking. When you search from your location at the place of business, what position are you seeing yourself in today? 2. Your review count is many times greater than that of any competitor, with the exception of Fox in a Box also having over 1,000 reviews. You currently have 1,399 reviews vs. the top competitor for this search term, Escape House, which has 95. Pardon the frank question, but are you certain you haven't done anything to violate Google's review guidelines in a way that might have prejudiced them against your listing? This would include incentivizing reviews in any way for your business, having employees review your business, etc. The advantage should be to you here, in your far greater number of reviews, but when the total number of reviews is so much greater than most of the rest of the field, it's important to be sure guidelines are being adhered to. 3. Your overall star rating of 4.9 is .1 greater than Escape House's 4.8. Advantage to you. 4. Your categories are the same as your top competitor's. No difference there. 5. Your competitor has written Google posts in the past. None are showing for you. Advantage to them. 6. You are doing a much better job responding to reviews than your top competitor is. Advantage to you. 7. What is going on with your business being located next door to two other escape businesses? Do you have a relationship with Escape House or Safe House? What is the scenario here? 8. In terms of business names, the name on your street signage as seen via Google Street View does not match what you have called your business in your GMB listing. Your street sign reads: The Escape Game. Your GMB listing is titled: The Escape Game Chicago. Adding extra keywords to your listing title is considered spam. Meanwhile, Escape House does not have extra keywords in their name. Technically, because Google's algorithm is still rewarding business name spammers, the advantage in this could be to you, but on the other hand, it could be possible that your business name was reported to Google and they are docking you for this. 9. The MozCast reported a bit of heavy weather on March 9th which could have included a shakeup in your pack. Local Rank Flux also reported a "hot" day on the 9th (see https://www.localsearchforum.com/threads/sudden-gmb-ranking-drop-for-all-keywords.55923/). So, these are some things I'm seeing at a glance. I would recommend that you follow through with a complete audit between yourself and the business ranking #1. And those questions regarding your reviews, your business name, and the geographic scenario regarding your business and the 2 competitors being next door to one another deserve a closer look. You aren't being impacted by the Possum filter, from what I can see, because you are present on the map despite your close proximity to the two other competitors, but you are in a densely competitive area, for sure. Please, feel free to come back with answer to the questions I've asked or with further questions of your own.
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis0 -
Links
I think you might be over thinking the TLD a bit much. Take a step back and look at it more like this - "does it benefit the user" if the site is relevant to your niche it really doesn't matter if its a .com .co.uk or even a .org etc. its the content of the site that's important more than the domain ext. I'd argue a point if you had a varied link profile but it doesn't matter too much if its .com etc. Hope that helps. *quick edit If you are worried a bit more and want to get more technical you could use the sites scehma to help with targeting but again it should be relevance first.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GPainter0 -
My affiliate links are being crawled by Google. Is this a bad thing? Also, should I add rel: nofollow to affiliate links?
I was facing the same issue on my site. After checking a few guides, here is what I found Make them no-follow (better add the new sponsored tag in them) Yes, it is a bad thing
Affiliate Marketing | | AswadBaghlol0