Citations and Directories

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in local search. I get seriously upset at Google for how they handle this. The short answer is you can’t do call tracking with your listings. If you put different numbers on different directories, then you send mixed signals to Google. Their answer is you can use call tracking on their paid products. Since Google My Business is free, I don’t think they are going to come up with a solution. All it would take is for Google to create another field called “preferred number” that you could fill out on your listing and it would display that number even though they would have record of your local number. It would also allow them to find any place online with the preferred number listed and attribute it correctly. In my opinion, Google is holding back the industry and crippling other directories by not allowing for call tracking. But they have every right to do it. That’s the worst part.

So what do I do? I keep the number consistent for NAP and I use an image on the website with a big number that is being tracked. That way, Google doesn’t index the number. The issue is this will only be used by the people on your website and not the business listings.

Firstly, none of these data aggregators work in Australia. This is because publishers in Australia do not use the data provided by these services. So Scalability here in Australia is not possible via these data aggregators.

Otherwise I think that they serve a great purpose, which is to scale local information across many different directories. For a business that has 100’s or 1000’s of locations, I don’t see a very feasible way to do this otherwise. The problem with all the services is that they are supplying data to partner sites that they do not control. So, lets say you have changed your phone number multiple times over the years. Or maybe you changed addresses. Paying these companies might get a new version of the address submitted, but it wont take care of the bigger issue, which is bad business information still left on directories. Also, while the basic business data is sent to the partners this doesn’t mean that every listing looks pretty and has pictures listed with the full profiles filled out. You get the basic data listed.

Generally speaking, if you can claim and fix listings by hand, I would recommend that approach. If you don’t have the time or money to do that, then using the data aggregators is a solid option. In some cases, the combination of both would be the perfect option. In your major markets, do as much hand claiming as possible and automate the rest.

If they spam the listings, yes. Here is an excellent write up by Bill Slawski on a patent that was granted to Google on how they might determine “spam citations.” The main thing Google would look for is a business name with search keywords stuffed in it, or categories with location keywords being used. So, if you are creating/claiming local listings correctly and keep your Name, Address, Phone (NAP) information accurate and consistent, then I don’t think you need to worry. On the other hand, if you are filling out your listings like this…then worry:

• Business Name – Keyword Keyword Location
• Category one: Location Dentist
• Category two: Dentist in Location
• Category three: Best Dentist in Location
• Category four: Local dentist in Location