Disconnected orthodontist listing

[jseaberg]

Hi Everyone, I've just come across this forum last week and it has been a tremendous resource. I manage the web and marketing for Halberstadt Orthodontics - currently on a volunteer basis as its my Father-in-law's business.

He's currently ranking well in organic for each of his three offices but we have fallen out of the local pack over the last few weeks (Bronx braces, Bronx orthodontist, Queens orthodontist, Queens Braces). Strangely, we continue to do fine for Forest Hills and Rockville Centre terms. From reading up on the forum, I think it might be a disconnected listing. I also should mention that his citations are currently all in the process of being transferred over, including several of the major aggregators. I've been manually working my way through all of his listings these past few months (definitely a tedious task for 3 locations with years and years worth of listings, name and address changes).

I initially thought there might have been a penalty for using the location name twice in the google plus page descriptions so I've edited those out. Reading a bit further, I'm thinking we may have some NAP issues listing by listing all three locations on the main page and again in the footer. I'm looking into switching to subdomains for this.

However, I'm not sure as to why he's only dropped out of local these past few weeks, especially when we've been doing fine for several months. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi J, welcome and thanks for posting. Glad you like what you've read here so far.

These things get complicated so without links to the listing(s) and more details, we'd be guessing in the dark. Could be a violation or glitch or page set up wrong or any number of things.

Please see this post which outlines some of the info that may be needed.
<a href="http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/help-support-google-local/58-rules-help-support-forum-please-read-before.html">Rules for the Help & Support Forum - Please Read Before Posting</a>
May not need it all, just add what you think applies.

Then also, so you know this is a peer support forum and I'm so busy these days I can seldom do the kind of in-depth research that would be required for this type of case.

But hopefully some of our other members can give you some tips when they have time. However sometimes to really get to the bottom of a complicated case takes a very time consuming deep dive which is beyond the scope of the volunteer support consultants can offer here in the forum. But maybe I'm wrong and this a an easy one to figure out.

 

[jseaberg]

Hi Linda, Thanks and sorry I missed that thread. Going to give this another go:

LINK to G+ Local OR if it's missing, link to web site:

Bronx - https://plus.google.com/101303184701668083554/about?hl=en
Queens (Forest Hills) - https://plus.google.com/100016174048977894370/about?hl=en
Rockville Centre - https://plus.google.com/113972486553780841864/about?hl=en

website is www.halberstadtortho.com

Name, address, phone (as listed in dashboard):

Halberstadt Orthodontics - Bronx, NY
3754 White Plains Rd Bronx, NY 10467


Halberstadt Orthodontics - Queens, NY
20 Continental Ave Forest Hills, NY 11375


Halberstadt Orthodontics - Rockville Centre, NY
364 Merrick Road Rockville Centre, New York 11570


*I did just notice that somehow the 'I deliver goods and services' box was checked for the Bronx address. I've unchecked this now.

Verification date: May 2013

Problem: Good placement for organic but missing from local pack in bronx and queens searches

Related History:
Organic rankings seem okay but listings have fallen out of the local pack for search terms containing Queens and Bronx. Citations have recently been updated but are still currently a mess (with dupes and incorrect address / business info).

I initially thought there might have been a penalty for using the location name twice in the google plus page descriptions (I had a few terms like Queens Braces, Queens Invisalign listed at the bottom) so I edited those out last week. Reading a bit further, I'm thinking we may also have some NAP issues by listing all three locations on the main page of our site and again in the footer. I'm looking into switching to subdomains for this.

The big question, however is why we've only dropped out of local these past few weeks, especially when we've been doing fine for several months.

Screenshot(s) if helpful: (See screenshot examples below)
Categories listed are: orthodontist, dentist.

IF RANKING PROBLEM: What City + Keyword?

Bronx braces, Bronx orthodontist, Bronx, NY orthodontist, Queens braces, Queens orthodontist, Queens, NY orthodontist, etc.


Thanks!

-Jeff

 

[jseaberg]

Did some digging and this looks similar to the issues here: http://localsearchforum.catalystema...22-organically-doing-well-google-local-5.html

Cache for the G+ pages still includes the tags: bronx braces, bronx invisalign, orthodontist bronx ny. Going to give it some time and hope for the best.

In the meantime, any feedback on the NAP structure on the site would be helpful (www.halberstadtortho.com) What would everyone recommend? Remove the three location addresses from the footer and feature them on individual location pages?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Jeff,

Sorry still no time for a deep dive but I've taken a couple quick peeks and have Qs.

"Cache for the G+ pages still includes the tags: bronx braces, bronx invisalign, orthodontist bronx ny. Going to give it some time and hope for the best."

1) How are you seeing cache of the G+ page? I can't get cache any more.

2) What do you mean by 'tags' on the G+ pages???

3) What's with "Brace Place"? Looks like that one was just verified in Dec?
Was there a re-brand or what's the story?

4) When did you tack city onto name, or has it always been like that?

5) You asked about NAP - I can't do all the research for that BUT need to stress, no matter what advice you get you should never change NAP without thinking through and fully understanding. (Well unless NAP is wrong or bad.) But in general any change in NAP can hurt ranking and potentially cause other problems.

5) Current description still has problems.

Spammers do repetition. Google feels like if name, address, city is already in the NAP on the top of the listing it does not need to be repeated over and over and since spammers do that it can trip a filter.

Your name: Halberstadt Orthodontics Queens, NY

Your description:

Dr. Geoffrey Halberstadt, DDS is an orthodontist in Queens, NY. Dr Halberstadt provides braces, Invisalign and other dental treatments for children, teens and adults at our Forest Hills office. Dr. Geoffrey Halberstadt is an experienced orthodontist and our team strives to provide outstanding care for all of our patients. Call us or visit our website to book a free pre-treatment consultation!

Do you see how a bot programmed to look for spam, could sent out a red flag, if in that few of words, the business name is repeated 3 times and KW (orthodontist, which is also a synonym for a word in the the biz is repeated twice? And Bronx was added to business name and is still repeated once in description.

I mean it's likely the previous City + KW repetition that did it, but often it's a combined repetitious signal so I would totally clean it up. I'd remove those names and ALL keywords. Talk about gentle, caring, great results. How long in business, all those other benefits.

It's not that you can never have a keyword in description. Of course you can. It's just that once you've been penalized and if you think it's for KW repetition, you want to totally strip it all out. See if you can get ranking back. Then maybe you can gradually add back in more descriptive terms.

 

[Dustybones]

Its looking like the city is showing in citations. Heading out for the day...

 

[jseaberg]

Thanks so much for such a thorough reply, Linda! I really appreciate it.

1) I guess it may not technically be the cache but I did a search for the offending text exactly as I had it typed in the old description and the plus page came up - so I'm assuming Google has yet to crawl to refresh. You're right, though, currently trying to view the cache for the plus page brings up an error.

2) Getting started, I read some bad advice on an seo post somewhere recommending to list tags in the description. I had it typed in as "Tags: bronx braces, bronx invisalign, orthodontist bronx ny"

3) Brace Place was one of many old business names that was used before I took this over. Currently working on cleaning this up, although it looks like we have a few duplicates in maps listed as closed. I wrote to Google and reported these but I'm still not sure how to have these deleted.

4) I just discovered the local optimization world about a month ago. Previously, I was just working on seo for the website. Anyway, on that discovery, I also found about 25 combinations of NAP listings. Some with typos, old addresses, middle initials, etc. So as a solution, we just chose Halberstadt Orthodontics with the city name for consistency and to match the website.

5) I'm not planning on changing the NAP, just wondering about listing the three addresses together on the main site. I read something you wrote in another thread suggesting places with multiple locations list NAP on separate pages so as to avoid confusion.

6) I'll dig into the description now but it sounds like I need to remove orthodontist, Queens and Halberstadt all together because they're part of the business name. Makes sense to start with a clean slate and work back up from there.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks so much for such a thorough reply, Linda! I really appreciate it.

1) I guess it may not technically be the cache but I did a search for the offending text exactly as I had it typed in the old description and the plus page came up - so I'm assuming Google has yet to crawl to refresh. You're right, though, currently trying to view the cache for the plus page brings up an error.

2) Getting started, I read some bad advice on an seo post somewhere recommending to list tags in the description. I had it typed in as "Tags: bronx braces, bronx invisalign, orthodontist bronx ny"

Ahhh OK, I see it now. Ya bad advice.

Some of those listings in Google search have the name of that listing as:
"Bronx, NY Orthodontist - Dr. Geoffrey Halberstadt"

When was the name changed to: Halberstadt Orthodontics Queens, NY???

Because like I said any name change can cause problems.

AND FYI that previous name was a serious violation, so there could be a penalty hangover.

 

[jseaberg]

I think it was changed about two months ago when I realized it was a violation.

 

[jseaberg]

New description for Queens. Do I strip it even further to remove orthodontist, braces and invisalign?

Dr. Geoffrey Halberstadt, DDS is an orthodontist in Forest Hills, NY. We provide dental treatments including braces and Invisalign for children, teens and adults. We've been in business creating beautiful smiles for over thirty years and our caring staff goes out of their way to make you feel a part of our family of satisfied patients. Call us or visit our website to book a free pre-treatment consultation!

 

[jseaberg]

Looks like we're back in the pack for bronx orthodontist at the moment.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Congrats getting back in the pack. For me right now you are sitting at F.

FYI for grins here you are in the pre-Pigeon algo.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bronx+orthodontist
Sitting up higher at D because Weiss and Ahmed are not above you.

 

[jseaberg]

Thanks Linda! Hoping the other terms follow suit soon.

 

[jseaberg]

Dropped back out...

 

[Linda Buquet]

"bronx orthodontist" in the pack for me. Sitting at F still.

You must have hit a different datacenter.

 

[jseaberg]

Still out of the pack on my end. Using private browsing in Safari to check. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking there may be some type of penalty for those business names - although I switched them out well before we lost our ranking in the pack... Perhaps there was a delay in this going through? I'm thinking that popping back in the pack may have been a temporary data center switch or perhaps a brief reversion.

 

[jseaberg]

A quick update, we're still not showing in the local 7 pack for the following terms (bronx orthodontist, bronx braces, queens orthodontist, queens braces) as well as a few other related terms. Occasionally, we pop back in for Bronx orthodontist, depending on what data center I think, but this comes and goes. We do however continue to do well in organic and from what I can tell, we're typically showing in the top 1-5 results for most relevant organic terms.

I'm still waiting for some of the main aggregators to distribute the changes we've made a few months ago and I'm hoping that greater consistency in NAP will have a substantial effect in the next 3-6 months.

I'm wondering if there's anything else I might do in the meantime, especially considering that we were showing up at the top of the 7-pack for all of these terms up until a few months ago. I called support for My Business and I was encouraged to put some of the keywords back into the description on our local page so I've added braces and Invisalign back in on the Bronx page to see if this has any effect. Is there another number I can try to talk with someone specifically for local? I'm worried this might be a penalty that's lingering and I'd really love to be able to troubleshoot if possible.

Thanks for any help.

Jeff

 

[jseaberg]

Just thought I'd post a quick update on this just in case it can help anyone else. It turns out that there were actually no issues with penalties, which is what I had thought initially. The poor performance in local was actually due to the offices not getting any patient reviews on google in several months. As soon as some new reviews went up, the listings shot back into the 7 and 3 packs and we've been doing well since.

Jeff

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for updating us.

Correlation is not always causation - and that's especially true with Google Local.

I don't see reviews as a direct ranking factor that much any more. If it were the listings with the most reviews would be on top. That's not the case. And if reviews were the magic ranking bullet then everyone would just try to game reviews. (Even more than they are already.)

However one thing I do know is there is often a delayed reaction with Google Local. Name changes, dupes, cleaning up bad data, can all have an effect that does not show up and/or correct until weeks or months later sometimes. So my guess is that the change has more to do with some of the other problems getting cleared up.

At any rate. Congrats and I'm happy you are back in the pack!