Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why is the incorrect city name being appended to search results when that search is done from a completely different city? Screenshot Included
-
Hi Guys,
This is weird. When searching "generator rentals" from within Vancouver/Lower Mainland and on a mobile device, our organic listing is ranked #1. That is the good news.
The bad news is that for some reason the title returend is: Generator Rentals & Temporary Power Distribution - Edmonton". The "-Edmonton" is dynamically added, but I have no idea why. Edmonton is in a completely different province than Vancouver... over 720 miles apart.
The only thing I can think of is that there is some sort conflict with our Google places account. You see, we do have an Edmonton branch. I have setup two branches... one for the Coquitlam/Vancouver branch and one for the Edmonton. And as far as I can tell, both are setup correctly.
A screenshot from my iPhone has been linked (http://imgur.com/9YvyLDB).
Any ideas would be appreciated. Thank you,
Jarrett
-
Hello Miriam,
All excellent points. I will be making some modifications to existing content today and begin writing requirements for separate city landing pages.
Thanks so much,
J
-
Excellent answer Dirk... thank you. I will make some tweaks today.
-
Hey Jarrett,
Three things immediately come to mind regarding this.
-
Your Edmonton location is simply more powerful in Google's eyes than your Vancouver location. Does it have more content, more citations, more reviews, an older web presence or other things along those eyes that could be causing Google to consider the former location more authoritative than the latter?
-
You have NAP inconsistency, causing your two locations to be confused with one another. To start troubleshooting this, take different elements of your name, address, phone number and website for the two locations and put them together in Google's search. For example, you might find the Edmonton address mixed up with the Vancouver phone number on some platforms, and this would need to be fixed.
-
Your website should have 1 unique page for your Edmonton location and another unique page for your Vancouver location, featuring complete NAP and relevant content. Your Google+ Local pages and all of your other citations can then link to these instead of your homepage, helping to keep these two locations more separate. I wasn't seeing these landing pages on your site, but if you already have them, they don't seem very visible.
Hope these are some good starting points to consider.
-
-
Hi,
First about the city added to the title. Google does this on mobile so that it's easier for the searcher to see if the business is nearby. If I search for "bakery" on my PC - it shows the normal titles, if I do the same thing on my mobile, it's adding the city.
About the wrong location: to be very honest I am not really an expert in local SEO. When I check your site however, it's seems to me that you're not really making it very clear to Google that you have two locations, and what your primary location is. You mention the two addresses on your home page, one with Alberta office, the other one with B.C. (and you assume that Google will know that B.C. stands for British Columbia).
Check this article on local SEO: https://moz.com/blog/everybody-needs-local-seo - it contains a lot of tips & tricks on how to make it very obvious to Google what your location is.
Hope this gets you started & maybe that other Moz members with more "local search" experience could add some additional tips.
rgds,
Dirk
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Incorrect Image is Displaying on Google My Business Knowledge Graph - Need Urgent Solution??
Incorrect Image is Displaying on Google My Business for our company. We have updated new image on google business But still, Google is fetching and showing old image on the google my business knowledge panel. What will be the right fix for this? Our site URL : www.yolobus.in
Local Listings | | AnkitS.19900 -
How do I rank inside the knowledge panel in the "people also search for" section?
Hello fellow Mozzers, In Google's knowledge panel there is a section at the bottom that says "people also search for" and a list of competitors is displayed. I'm hoping to get some information I can use to get my client listed there on top of the local organic results. The more SERP presence, the better. Attached image should provide clarity to those who are confused. I suspect I know the answer to this question, but since I can't find a source to verify my beliefs, I'm crowdsourcing. Thanks in advance! NhoihY1
Local Listings | | brettmandoes0 -
Which Rank Trackers Include Local 3-pack Rankings?
Granted the Local 3-pack is heavily influenced by the distance between the user and the business, when you actually include the city name in the search, the local 3 pack result doesn't center the map at the city in the search and not the user's location so it is much more consistent despite the searcher's location. So my personal opinion is that it is worth tracking local 3-pack when you use a keyword such as "Home Inspection Seattle Wa" With that said, which rank tracking services includes the local 3-pack in their tracking results, other than of course Bright Local?
Local Listings | | JCCMoz0 -
Business Name Not Showing Up in Google's Maps
I have a client whose name in not currently showing up on Google maps. Their business location only shows once their name or related keywords are searched, but their business name does not show when you only look for it on the map regardless of how far zoomed in you are to the actual location. I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this, or knows of a way to fix this. I have already contacted Google multiple times, and they told me that “business’ names are just randomly pulled”. The client is an HVAC store front business with good rankings and a fully optimized Google profile, so these reasons did not answer the issue. Client’s GMB profile: https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=rothheating oak creeek&oq=rothheating oak creeek&rlz=1C1JPGB_enUS685US685&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.5919j0j4 DBZfF
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
Google My Business - two locations but same name and phone
Hello, I manage SEO for an orthopaedic practice and I'm wondering what to do about their GMB listings. They have two locations, but I'm starting to think we shouldn't have separate GMB pages for the two locations because of the advice about other GMB questions I've been reading on this forum. I read a helpful response that said you must ensure the following if you want to create separate GMB listings: Unique name Unique address (even if only a suite / office number) Unique phone number Clearly different categories on Google My Business I can only ensure one of those - unique address. The business has the same name, phone number, and categories at both addresses. What should I do about this? I would think it's important to list both addresses so that patients can be guided to the appropriate location, but is there a way to do that with just one GMB listing? Thank you, Susannah
Local Listings | | SusannahK.Noel0 -
How to change your location for local search results?
Hi Everybody Back in december 2015 I came across this article https://gofishdigital.com/google-results-change-location/ explaining how to change location for local search results using the google emulation tool by setting up new coordinates. This was also picked up by mikeblumenthals' blog as being one of the best way of doing this. I tried it at the time and it worked very well. I tried using it last week and again this week but my location no longer seems to update. I have tried it on fifferent computers located in different locations and still it doesn't work. Does anyone know if this feature is no longer available and if not what else they'd recommend to verify local search results. Thanks
Local Listings | | coolhandluc0 -
Concerned about cannibalization for local SEO results. Should we move some of our location pages to a subdomain?
Currently we are providing local SEO recommendations for a well known pharmacy chain. Like most major brands they enjoy multiple organic (not just 3 pack results) listings when people search for local phrases such as "Dallas pharmacy clinics'". The issue is that all these listings are coming from the same domain page. We are seeing multiple listings both branded and non-branded search queries. Our concern is that Google will someday decide to choose one listing as the most authoritative and nix the rest of the local listings which will reduce their first page search engine saturation. To maintain first page saturation we are considering recommending to the client that they move some of their location listings
Local Listings | | RosemaryB
to a subdomain (different IP address) to avoid a Google "clean up". Please note that our client is certainly not using any "doorway" pages but some of these are very scarce on content. They do not have an issue with duplicate content either. By using subdomains could we help maintain our client's first page saturation? Any links to articles would be much appreciated.0 -
Google My Business- Will a large service area dilute local search results?
I am considering adding our actual service area to our Google My Business profile, but I don't want this to dilute our local search results. As it is, we come up in the top 3 or so when searched in our HQ's city and several nearby cities when you search for us in Google Maps (although when I look at the top 10 organic for Google for some reason when you search for these cities + our keywords Google doesn't show any local results). Our actual service area is fairly large, comprising the states of CA & Hawaii & parts of CO, AZ, and UT. I would be adding the service area by zip code rather than radius, as a radius wouldn't make any sense in this case (particularly considering the distance between HI and CA). Is it better to keep our relatively high ranking in local results? Will adding the service area not affect local results negatively? Also, do you know why Google isn't showing me local results when I look for our keywords + our nearby cities? When I look for these keywords in larger cities like LA or San Diego, Google always shows me local results.
Local Listings | | BohmKalish1230