Additional Details Section

[grantbrott]

I just took over dozens of places listings and on a couple I am seeing something that worries me. In the additional details section they have their broad legal practice area like personal injury then on the left all the subcategories of that:

Personal Injury: Wrongful Death, Brain Injury, Slip and Fall, Dog Bite, Store Accidents

They have like 7 of these in there and I am worried that might be too spammy or something. I usually see links to general stuff like parking or brands carried and links to social profiles.

Is this something that I should change or is it cleared to be there like that, I could not find anything in the guidelines about the additional details sections.

 

[Linda Buquet]

That section stopped showing live months ago. But Google has said in the past the algo still looks at that section. Not sure if it really still does though.

HOWEVER back when that section showed live you could see that it was often spam central.
And my VERY STRONG SUSPICION is that KW repetition in that section can still trip a spam filter.

What I teach in my course is the same best practice rules as I teach for the description because a variety of things can trip a spam filter that won't get you suspended but can sometimes cause a ranking penalty.

I just consulted with an atty who was suspended and he had other spammy issues as well, but did the same thing as you are describing in the more details section. As soon as he got suspended before he even came to me, he nuked all that, realizing it was likely a problem.

Not I DO recommend using that section for ADDITIONAL services not covered by your 5 categories. If the algo IS looking I think it can help a little with industry relevance. But I'd only do one field…
Additional Services: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or so max. (Being careful NOT to repeat any KWs from cats.)

And BE SURE NOT TO REPEAT CITY DOWN THERE!

BUT if you just inherited a bunch of new accounts, the quick easy answer is, just nuke everything in more details and delete it out to be on safe side.