Google Places (Maps) Rankings - How to get citations and how to link?

by Chloe Brooks

Posted: 13 years ago 12 replies

Hi Guys
From what I hear having citations from other websites can help the rankings in Google Places. So how do you get them if you have a site that is not located in the US and also how does the citation work?

Do I get other websites to link directly to my website or is it linking to the google places listing for the citations? Or is there anything else that I did not get? Lastly how do I find high quality citation websites to link to me?

Thanks a million
Chloe

#citations #google #link #maps #places #rankings

webapex 13 years ago

Citations are listings in other indexes, like the online yellow pages that ideally list the exact business name, address and phone number as appears in the places listing. There are some paid business directories that google highly regards, like the BBB online.
Check the top ranked competitors places pages, you can find signs of citations, like reviews from other sites.

Links to the places listing page reportedly raise the listing position too.
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paulgl 13 years ago

Do you mean reviews? From sites like Yelp, tripadvisor?
As far as I know those are worldwide.
You need visitors to do good reviews on those sites. Google will take those
from various other review sites. Google even has their own ratings page.

Many people will create fake accounts and pump up their ratings.

Paul
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Matthew Loop 13 years ago

Citations, reviews and anchor text backlinks are key to Google Places profiles. Below is a system you can use for local citations.

Whitespark Local Citation Finder for Local SEO

Reviews should come from happy customers. You want to have a disproportionate amount of reviews than that of your competitors.

You can get anchor text backlinks from article sites, press release sites, forums, blogs, etc...
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- paulgl 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Matthew Loop
  
  You can get anchor text backlinks from article sites, press release sites, forums, blogs, etc...
  
  Those have nothing to do with google places. It's all about location,
  relevance, and reviews.
  
  Paul
  
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  Matthew Loop 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by paulgl
  
  Those have nothing to do with google places. It's all about location,
  relevance, and reviews.
  
  Paul
  
  That's incorrect... Anchor text backlinks to the actual Google Places listing are VERY important in conjunction with everything else you mentioned. That's based on over a thousand local clients I've worked with over the years.
  
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  alxvallejo 13 years ago
  
  If I'm not mistaken, backlinks to your website have a strong correlation to your Places rankings.
  
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  1 reply
  
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  Gebruiker1700 13 years ago
  
  What is the best option?
  
  To link with anchor text to the Google Places listing
  or to link with anchor text to the website homepage?
  
  What option is better if you want to rank high on Google Places?
  
  Thanks
  
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AbsoluteDominance 13 years ago

I had a similar experience to Matthew, shortly after adding some links to a gp page I noticed a significant jump in position. I am interested to know what others have found?

Steve
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AbsoluteDominance 13 years ago

Also, Chad Kimball found a way to add 5000+ citations to a business, has anyone else found cool ways to increase that number for gp ranking?
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bfennell1 13 years ago

Google places used to show you the citations, it seems that they have disappeared now or am I wrong?
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jesseholmes 13 years ago

Hey Chloe,

I've seen significant boost in my GPLs using citations and creating what are called 'my maps'. My Maps is a feature of Google Maps that lets you create and share personalized, annotated maps. I have a guy who creates them for me with different gmail accounts.

Although citations and my maps were once extremely effective, back in July Google did an overhaul on their places page:

Article from searchengineland.com says -

"The new layout of Place Pages puts a heavy emphasis on reviews. More specifically, it emphasizes reviews from Google users and no longer shows review content from third party sites. (Google had issues with both Yelp and TripAdvisor over review snippets last year, you may recall.)

Rather than showing external reviews, the new Place Page only links to third party sites after showing a selection of Google user reviews."

The google blog says itself -

"Based on careful thought about the future direction of Place pages, and feedback we’ve heard over the past few months, review snippets from other web sources have now been removed from Place pages. Rating and review counts reflect only those that’ve been written by fellow Google users, and as part of our continued commitment to helping you find what you want on the web, we’re continuing to provide links to other review sites so you can get a comprehensive view of locations across the globe"

So while you can build a few more citations on sites like:

yell.com
ufindus
SmileLocal
TouchLocal
Scoot
InfoServe
Yelp
WeLoveLocal
BrownBook
BView
Hotfrog
Qype
local,yahoo.com
yellowpages,com
411.com
infospace.com
anywho.com
judysbook.com
yellowbot.com
shopcity.com
dexknows.com
magicyellow.com
zidster.com
infousa.com
localeze.com
citysearch.com
yellowbook.com
insiderpages.com
kudzu.com
local.com
merchantcircle.com
cityvoter.com
citysquares.com
foursquare.com
hotfrog.com
rateitall.com
bestofthewest.com
qype.com
Angie’s List
Brownbook
ziplocal.com
foundlocally.com
citydirect.info
frommers.com
ibegin.com
daplus.us
hotpot (Google)
gowalla
urbanspoon
zagat
tripadvisor
ezlocal.com
backpage.com
metromix
nymag.com
parentsconnect.com
servicemagic.com
cosmotourist.com
trivago
blog.hostelbookers.com
promotionalcodes.com
couponsnapshot.com

Reviews are really where everything is going.

Hope that helps!

-Jesse
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- bostonterrierjoe 12 years ago
  
  dont they have a service that submits all the listings for you?
  
  Thanks
  
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Google Places (Maps) Rankings - How to get citations and how to link?

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