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Local SEO getting screwed by the authority sites?

by nik0 Banned
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
It shouldn't get more pathetic then this, I just do some searches for local profession + San Diego and 80% of the organic results are dominated by stuff like:

- yellow pages
- Yelp
- white pages
- super pages
- zoc doc
- angies list
- BBB

And more of those bullshit phone book styled books, even at page two.

In some cases it's even so bad that the Google places only shows 1 listing.

A year ago or so Google would leave most local sites untouched, nowadays they seem to care a lot less.

You're observing the same?
#authority #local #screwed #seo #sites
  • Profile picture of the author 3000
    I was just going to say something about that. I was thinking of doing some local seo and that's exactly what I saw too!

    Is it possible to outrank those sites?
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  • Profile picture of the author BennyP
    Hasn't affected me yet. But i have noticed all my keyword terms are now only showing 2 google places listings instead of 6. You can beat them.
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  • Profile picture of the author domainarama
    I can understand that the local profession + city space is getting crowded. Lots of new WSOs and similar programs. But I can't understand why you include
    - white pages
    - super pages
    - zoc doc
    - angies list
    - BBB
    in your list. Ordinary people don't search for professionals using those terms. It sounds like something artificial is going on here.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by domainarama View Post

      But I can't understand why you include
      - white pages
      - super pages
      - zoc doc
      - angies list
      - BBB
      in your list. Ordinary people don't search for professionals using those terms. It sounds like something artificial is going on here.
      :rolleyes: those are the results not the search terms. He isn't including the terms hes saying those are the RESULTs he is finding.
      Signature

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  • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
    Its been a long time. Those listings just rule the serp these days. Google even took away map results for lots of industries. They just dont want crappy local sites to rank higher just like they're kicking all those crappy affiliate sites out of the serp.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      Its been a long time. Those listings just rule the serp these days. Google even took away map results for lots of industries. They just dont want crappy local sites to rank higher just like they're kicking all those crappy affiliate sites out of the serp.
      With affiliate sites they have a point, no one is waiting for fake reviews, and if you want to make it a neat site with real info you can't cause then you must know the product before you can start giving it rates, kind of the thing I'm boxing up against right now with my new styled review sites.

      But with local businesses it makes totally zero sense cause those crappy local sites are all listed at Yelp, Yellow etc etc.

      When we look at other things it seems that Google likes to cut out the middle man, for example affiliate site owners, for example providing answers to query their selves (travel, biographies) and with local business they are putting the middle man in between instead.

      Now I understand where the stories come from that Google wants to push everyone at PPC / Adwords, it makes total sense, obvious Google will have some lame reason like: "We want the best for our visitors and protect them from being ripped off and Yelp reviews are the answer to that"

      I took San Diego as an example as I had 2 clients there about 1.5 years ago, back then at the top, and back then the search results looked completely different then what it's now.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Yelp does the same as ebay, they blast internal search pages at Google SERPs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
    Nik may be this article from moz could help a little? Its not a solution but it shows hummingbird is kind of responsible for all this mayhem. For SEOs they'll have to pull out their best game now to rank for certain cities but for local businesses its a win win sitaution. They can have three listings on the first page of google now. One being in the places listing pack, second being a web listing and third being a local directory listing. Even better if google shows yellow pages and yelp for same business in the first page. Lots of opportunites for local businesses.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      Nik may be this article from moz could help a little? Its not a solution but it shows hummingbird is kind of responsible for all this mayhem. For SEOs they'll have to pull out their best game now to rank for certain cities but for local businesses its a win win sitaution. They can have three listings on the first page of google now. One being in the places listing pack, second being a web listing and third being a local directory listing. Even better if google shows yellow pages and yelp for same business in the first page. Lots of opportunites for local businesses.
      Well what I see right now is that it are not specific business listings from Yelp etc that rank but instead overview pages like these:

      San Diego » Home Services » Electricians - Yelp
      Electricians in San Diego, CA on Yahoo Local
      Find Electricians in San Diego and Imperial Counties
      Electricians in San Diego, California with Reviews & Ratings - YP.com
      http://www.angieslist.com/companylis...electrical.htm
      http://www.thumbtack.com/ca/san-diego/electrician/
      http://www.homeadvisor.com/c.Electri...CA.-12026.html

      You see that's 7 overview pages for electricians in the San Diego area, in this case there is only ONE Google Places listing left.

      I've never tried to get the individual business listing from a client ranked there, would make a nice test.

      Will check out the Moz article as well.

      Interesting article, would be a good way to retain clients when they deal with a penalized site and also a good way to up sell my services. Guess it's a win win afterall.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      Nik may be this article from moz could help a little? Its not a solution but it shows hummingbird is kind of responsible for all this mayhem. For SEOs they'll have to pull out their best game now to rank for certain cities but for local businesses its a win win sitaution. They can have three listings on the first page of google now. One being in the places listing pack, second being a web listing and third being a local directory listing. Even better if google shows yellow pages and yelp for same business in the first page. Lots of opportunites for local businesses.
      Not a moz fan but that screenshot of yelp is what I usually see when yelp ranks a page, it's usually an internal search page which Google flamed ranking internal search pages a year or so back, not sure why Google still lets it happen.

      The URL on the ranked yelp internal search page is extremely obvious for Google algo to filter out of the SERPs, anything after a question mark in a URL is internal search, heck, the yelp URL even includes the word search.

      Again, ebay does the exact same thing, ranking internal search pages.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        Not a moz fan but that screenshot of yelp is what I usually see when yelp ranks a page, it's usually an internal search page which Google flamed ranking internal search pages a year or so back, not sure why Google still lets it happen.

        The URL on the ranked yelp internal search page is extremely obvious for Google algo to filter out of the SERPs, anything after a question mark in a URL is internal search, heck, the yelp URL even includes the word search.

        Again, ebay does the exact same thing, ranking internal search pages.
        You happen to know from where they link to that search page?
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      • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        Not a moz fan but that screenshot of yelp is what I usually see when yelp ranks a page, it's usually an internal search page which Google flamed ranking internal search pages a year or so back, not sure why Google still lets it happen.

        The URL on the ranked yelp internal search page is extremely obvious for Google algo to filter out of the SERPs, anything after a question mark in a URL is internal search, heck, the yelp URL even includes the word search.

        Again, ebay does the exact same thing, ranking internal search pages.
        I found this from matt's blog.

        "Typically, web search results don’t add value to users, and since our
        core goal is to provide the best search results possible, we generally
        exclude search results from our web search index. (Not all URLs that
        contains things like “/results” or “/search” are search results, of
        course.)"

        They tried to get rid of these internal search results way back in 2007. dont know what made them bring it back. or maybe not all urls that contains things like "/search?" are search results lol
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

          I found this from matt's blog.

          "Typically, web search results don't add value to users, and since our
          core goal is to provide the best search results possible, we generally
          exclude search results from our web search index. (Not all URLs that
          contains things like "/results" or "/search" are search results, of
          course.)"

          They tried to get rid of these internal search results way back in 2007. dont know what made them bring it back. or maybe not all urls that contains things like "/search?" are search results lol
          A bunch of freaking clowns over there at Google.

          Like someone said, we get penalized by Panda cause of thin address listing pages and Yelp and the other big boys rank with them like there's no end in sight.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    It's not only in local SEO but virtually every circles.

    If you are not an authority anytime soon then forget about business reliant on free SEO traffic.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

      It's not only in local SEO but virtually every circles.

      If you are not an authority anytime soon then forget about business reliant on free SEO traffic.
      Yeah it's totally pathetic, there must be more to it one way or another.

      Oh well, in the future we just rank those authority pages for our clients and perhaps at some day in the future those authority sites are so DIE-HARD spammed by everyone and his mother that Google choses to Penguin penalize the whole platform(s).

      That would definitely make my day
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Seriously, c'mon use your head.

    Those sites rank because they have authority - and they're heavily moderated (at least here in Australia they are) This means quality. They're trusted.

    There's no point jumping up and down about thin crappy sites with 3 pages using EMD's stuffed with keywords not being ranked "first page".
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  • Profile picture of the author FPagetraffic
    Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

    It shouldn't get more pathetic then this, I just do some searches for local profession + San Diego and 80% of the organic results are dominated by stuff like:

    - yellow pages
    - Yelp
    - white pages
    - super pages
    - zoc doc
    - angies list
    - BBB

    And more of those bullshit phone book styled books, even at page two.

    In some cases it's even so bad that the Google places only shows 1 listing.

    A year ago or so Google would leave most local sites untouched, nowadays they seem to care a lot less.

    You're observing the same?
    We had observed the same, but you can enhance your Local search result with few Onsite stuff and with reputation.
    You need to optmize your website for Local search results, As Google use to filter the Local search results very first after that near search results, and so on.. you have to make sure that your website is optimized for the local search results (in case you want to get higher rank than the other listings). Here few steps towards the quality local Search results.
    Onsite stuff -
    1. Make sure your landing page is optimized for the local Search results. Use title optimization, description optimization , heading tag optimization. Don't ignore the Schema.org for local Search results. Add this as well, You can also use Data highlighter as well.
    2.. Link your Google map listing with the targeted page (add KML)
    3. Verify the Google map and link with your website
    4. Get the reviews on the map
    5. In your business listing (other websites such as yellow pages - Yelp- white pages - super pages - zoc doc - angies list - BBB, have the proper Landing page(The page which is optimized for that place)).
    6. Don't ignore the power of Social signals

    Hope this will help
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    • Profile picture of the author tanmay92
      Seriously? You thought they going to dominate the search result.
      It was because of the latest posts with those keywords because of which they are ranking. It is only for 1 week or so they will rank on the 1st page. But google will rank you after some period if your content is quality content
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