Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Kevin, most of the experts I read seem to think backlinks to your G+ Local listing don't boost ranking at all.

Thanks parayama for the mention.

Happy New Year all!

So sorry wish I could help but bulk is the one thing I don't deal with. I find there are not many consultants that know about/work deeply with bulk uploads either and from all the questions I get about it at my forum I know it's not an easy or straightforward process.

Have you posted at the Google Business forum? Myself or one of the other Top Contributors can escalate it to Google if no one knows how to help.

Also have you tried phone support? If you can get someone on the phone that understands bulk, that may be your best bet. From the feedback I get it sounds like most of the phone support reps are somewhat entry level, but maybe they can get you to someone?

Thanks Miriam.

It's buried in a thread on another topic, but shows screenshots of the same problem described here.

Numerous Complaints about GoDaddy's Locu Menu Links on Google Local Pages

Scroll down to post #8 - #12.

I think there is a locksmith spam ring doing this.

I've helped a couple locksmiths in the Google forum with the exact same problem and all these spammy locksmiths are linking to Yelp category pages.

In 2 cases they were linking directly to a Yelp page of the locksmith that was reporting them.

I'll add this example to the ones I've escalated to Google management.

"We did this to let people know that we come out to their location, and also to try to expand our reach. For example, if you were searching for an SEO company in Chesterfield, that is an area that is about 30 mins from us. I'm not sure our local office listing would "carry" that far out, and thus the service area was created as a test."

Service area and service radius have absolutely no impact on ranking. It's been tested, proven. Typically you'll only rank in the city your are in. Unless competition is low and you are very strong, then sometimes you'll rank in other cities, but service area settings don't play a part.

"I'm not sure that the bot would take that long to recrawl the listing, and I would have thought that it would have happened by now if that was the case."

Sorry, not talking regular bots, like the ones that crawl sites. Maybe bot is the wrong word. But with Local listings you can have a violation for years without an issue. Then you make a minor edit and it seems to trigger a recheck of the listing to see if it stands up to current guidelines, then it gets wacked.

You had another question I got via email but it's not showing up here so copying:

"I had a question about this, as even though we had quite a few mentions of the city and service they were spread out throughout the description and not bulked together in the traditional definition of keyword-stuffing. If what you were saying about the description having no part to play is true, how would that have had an impact on the LBL drop?

Help me understand, my mind is a sponge right now ;)"

Description is not a RANKING factor. But the algo looks at it as a signal of spamminess. Spammers have lots of patterns that the algo can pick up on, this is one of them. So a non-spammy description can trip a filter if it follows the same pattern of overly repetitious keywords.

In that short description, count every single time any word is repeated more than once. I did a quick scan and counted 25.

Mike Blumenthal has also said mentioning city even twice in description can cause a 10 point ranking penalty. I have examples I could show at my forum, where the description was not spammy or KW stuffed, but the city and KWs were repeated multiple times. They clean up description per my recommendation and pop right back up.

But again all that was pre-pigeon. After, it seemed like lots of really spammy ones were getting away with it. So may no longer be an issue.

But like I said above, if it does not help and if customers will never see it and if it could maybe hurt AND if your ranking was suffering, why not clean it up? Nothing to lose.

Wow, excellent response Miriam and right on!

The other thing you might want to consider is getting more rankings for long tail queries for each location by actively incorporating neighborhood SEO. So each location tries to get more rankings for neighborhood and other regional queries to help compensate for the fact they may not rank for KW + city.

I think there have been several posts about this, but here is one I found for you from SE Land:
http://searchengineland.com/ready-googles-neighborhood-algo-194161

The local blended algo in the 7 pack is more about organic ranking factors. Claiming, filling out, # or reviews and citations does not matter as much as organic does.

I just did a huge post about it showing how you can research and see this and how to do competitive analysis to see why whos at the top of the 7 pack is really there.

But additionally new Place pages can take 6 - 8 weeks to fully work into the local database. So if you recently pin verified you won't show in local at all for KW searches and will only show on maps for direct phone or name+ city searches.

Chase, Wissam's link will help a lot.

But in general many citations, stem from the yellow pages. Many mature businesses I've worked with have never submitted a single citation, yet have 50,000 or more.

If they've been listed in the phone book, it propagates out from there. Many directories scrape the online yellow pages, then other directories scrape those directories. Plus you'll see in David Mihm's visual, many of the back end data providers get phone book data and business listings, then feed the info out to tons of other sites.

"I know that since they have a presence in these towns that are within 25 miles, I could set up an "area of service" listing by verifying their other stores as locations for the main store, which would get their central store and main website listed in the local results in those towns."

Actually that's not how local works and would cause problems on a few levels. The service area setting is only for businesses that go out to the customer - like plumbers. It's not for retail stores.

Plus setting service area does not help the slightest bit as far as ranking in other cities. It only shows customers how far you will drive to service them on-site.

In local if the competition is medium to heavy and decent size town you typically will only rank in the city you are located in. So the main store is not going to rank in city A unless competition is very low. You can test by searching City A + KW  and see if only businesses from that city show or if listings show for the city the main office is in.

So best strategy is to optimize each location for their primary categories in the city they are actually in.

Hi Ruben,

Keyword stuffed names are a major violation but one that Google often does not penalize.

Check out "Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney". 2 fake names occupy the C and D spots.

Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer (Site used is AVVO.com)
Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney (Site used is Lawyer.com)

Both listings are really for Brenner Law. Same location and phone #.

Tons of us have blogged about it and reported to Google numerous times. Even reported to Matt Cutts a few times. The listings violate the guidelines PLUS 2 should not be showing in the pack like that for the same business anyway.

This is due to the bad Pigeon algo that was released 7/24. Pigeon is rewarding lots of spam. However KW stuffed names have been a problem for a long time. Just worse since Pigeon.

Yep Miriam, that's what I meant. You just said it shorter and sweeter!

Thanks Miriam!

One more thing I wanted to mention. The guidelines purposely do not spell everything out. They are VERY vague for a reason... so as not to give spammers and scammers an exact road map of what to avoid. But folks like Miriam and I, that help folks in the trenches after they have already gotten in trouble, often know about unwritten rules or where the line is drawn on vague guidelines.

I often ask Google management too where the real line is drawn or what a subtle guideline really means. Often the reality is very black and white, it's just written in a pale shade of gray.

"Is there any additional benefit to claiming a business listing other than locking it from being edited?"

Claiming does not lock it from being edited. Still can be by either Google or users.

As far as SEO and ranking - no benefit really. I see unclaimed listings in the A spot all the time.

Except for 2 important things.

1. Categories are one of the most important local ranking signals. If you don't claim, all you get is whatever standard category Google gives you, no additional ones.

2. As far as conversions, click-though and stick rate - claiming can make a HUGE difference. (Adding great images, a compelling description, hours, etc.)

Click-though and stick rate are both important ranking factors.

The data/image from the page shows up in the Knowledge panel, so a surfer comparing listings in Google search could be swayed more by a nice KP, especially if there are the additional elements added of having a G+ Post and image show up. That's just extra free ad space you aren't using if you don't claim and post to G+.

So all the above could help get either more calls or clicks and again click-through is now one of the strongest ranking factors. So I would assume click-through from SERPs to G+ would also count.

I've been posting about the new carousel a lot too, since it was 1st spotted in the wild and have many of the same questions you do.

Since I have not been lucky enough to sit on a test server that is displaying carousels yet, I have not had a chance to investigate. Have only seen other people's screen shots.

But I have a strong feeling this is launching soon, so when it does I can investigate more. At this point I'd only be guessing. But again GREAT questions that I hope will spark a good discussion.

Yes the service area is set right AND that's why Google already automatically hid the address and it no longer shows live.

However hiding address does not get around the other violation. The address in dash must still be 'REAL'.

Business Location: Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location.

• Do not create a listing or place your pin marker at a location where the business does not physically exist. P.O. Boxes are not considered accurate physical locations.

Note: when you change address you'll likely need to reverify, she'll likely have to start over in the 6 - 8 week ranking cycle and will possibly lose reviews. Same thing with correcting the name when you do that.

So re-doing to make this right can cause some problems which is why Miriam and both stress learning all the ins and outs so you can do it right the 1st time. Because Google is not very forgiving about making changes. But this is how we learn right? (Taking hard knocks and having to re-do stuff.)

Yes I agree with everyone above. There are pros and cons both ways. We've had this discussion many time at other venues and the general consensus, even from top citation pros is that it does not matter too much either way.

As Range and Monica said, keeping NAP consistent is the most important thing.

FYI I just announced the carousel launched - it's official and rolling out now!

If by local you mean you've merged with G+, then FYI after you merge with G+ you are not supposed to edit anything in the old Places dash any more at all anyway, so there is really no "which is better" strategy. You are limited by which dash you are in and whether you have merged or not (which if you have not do not BTW.)

Plus custom cats are going away soon. Google is upgrading everyone to the new Places dash, which like Google+ does not allow custom cats. THEN they are auto-upgrading everyone to G+ so everyone will have a merged page, which again does not allow custom cats.

So both the old dash and custom cats will be gone soon. Sad...

Yes if you are outside the US, then I agree with the others. The Pigeon algo expanded overseas and exhibits many of the characteristics you are describing.

Many report 7 packs being reduced to 3 packs, but in some industries packs are totally gone.

I was just coming to say something like the 1st part of what Chris said. Google local listings are for physical locations, does not matter how many sites you have.

Since you mentioned ecomm wanted to say that online only businesses do not qualify for a Google Local listing - it's not allowed. But if any of the locations do business face to face with customers locally, then they can have a local page. And yes if all the same company, it's fine to have all listings in the same account.