Local Search Citations

[idv]

Hi

Is there a checker where it will show what local citation sites a Google Places listing has? My listing has been claimed on the likes of Yelp, Qype etc but I doubt if the others above me have as they have not even claimed their places account

The reason being is that it can only be the local citations that is causing the following listing - or if there is anything else I would be interested to learn what it is?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?hl=en&safe=active&prmd=imvns&resnum=5&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1280&bih=828&wrapid=tlif132205140339110&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=chartered+accountants+swansea&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=chartered+accountants&hnear=0x486e45555a4e97b1:0x3d77128e2fe7cb74,Swansea,+Neath+Port+Talbot&cid=7535215611406218142&ei=T-fMTvTbC4zA8QOpwLz6Dw&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=2&ved=0CEIQ4gkwAQ

to appear above

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=chartered%20accountants%20swansea&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CG8QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harrisbassett.co.uk%2Fcontact-harris-bassett.htm&ei=BufMToaLEtTY8QPQ9JjXDw&usg=AFQjCNHH86xx6pmUJ2BBODG_LGHeSL7RYg

on a search for chartered accountants swansea

[RobertFisher]

I would be curious as to why you believe: "The reason being is that it can only be the local citations that is causing the following listing...to be rated above...," the other?

First, your query term for the first link is: chartered accountants Swansea

If you look at DRP (first link - Google Places), the categories they have chosen up to the continue... are: all accounting categories. When you look at Harris Basset the first category is accountant, and the next two are financial consultant and payroll... This does cause a problem.

When you look at DRP, there address is ...Swansea Enterprise Park, Swansea, whereas HarrisBasset is ...Enterprise Park, Swansea, West Glamorgen... Also, you state the others have not claimed their places account yet the one you show, DRP, clearly states it is an owner verified listing.

But, even more telling is that there are 3 citations on the Harris Basset Places page that all took place in two days.

Is the company you paid to do the reviews the same one that stated the ludicrous assumption about local citation? Click on the names on each of the reviews and you will see that each reviewer posted two reviews to companies....The same two companies. If a lowly SEO guy can figure it out, trust me, the GOOGLE can. Even if only Swansea is chosen for a probability test, what is the likelihood that three reviewers for one company would have only two reviews each and that the second review was for the same second company? When you add in that the time frame of all six reviews is less than 3 weeks and that the second company was a window and conservatory company (really, they did not know each other but all three purchased windows within a week of one another and then, purchased accounting within 24 hours of one another).

So, you may need a real SEO team to handle your local representation. There are white hat ways to get citations from real Harris Basset clients (assuming HB has clients that are happy of course) posted on Places and other sites. Even with those methods, I never allow my team to have immediate posts one after the other for a client site. It is just too likely to cause an alert in my opinion.

I could go on and on about how these reviews were written but it would be overkill. Sorry to beat that long dead horse, but this is stuff that I see every day. Work on getting the real clients to review over a period of time and clean up the categories.

All the best,