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Have Doctor, Dentist or Attorney dupes? Read on!
Just sharing a little experiment I did. Sort of a little mini case study.
Don't have time to do a big post with all the back story. Most of you are aware of the issue with practitioner dupes hurting rankings on main practice listing and the fact that Google usually won't remove practitioner dupes any more. If not, see this detailed post.
NOTE TO SEARCH ENGINE LAND READERS 2/17/15 - Andrew linked to this post which is old and just an experiment. Please read the post instead instead which is the main post on the subject.
So thought I'd share this little story and we'll see how it plays out.
I have an ex-client (Dentist) that I noticed took a drop in rankings and was disconnected in blended.
Still ranks high in organic due to the on-site I did, but dropped out of blended.
Before I started he was #31 organic and not listed in blended for "City Dentist". I got him up #3 blended after the on-site SEO I did. (Which was pretty good considering he's WAY outside the ranking radius for that city.)
(He's in a very large spread out metro area and is as far from city center as you can get. He also has a newer practice so not a ton of citations like the mature practices all over the city.)
Now due to the dupe dropped totally out of blended.
(He's still #5 organic)
Although he's no longer a client, I do use him in my Local SEO training examples, so wanted to see if I could get him fixed up without having to contact him or charge him to do a bunch of extra work etc.
(Those of you who have taken my Local SEO training, it's the main listing I use in my Automated Local SEO template example.)
So checked into it and sure enough as I suspected it was a dupe that knocked him out of blended.
The dupe was formatted as follows: Typo Practice Name: Dr. Name Backwards. And it linked to site home page. (Just like the practice listing does.)
So I thought in addition to trying to do a quick easy fixer upper for him AND to test the strategy I blogged about (above) I would try a user edit right on the live listing. Partly to test how long user edits are currently taking to go live and partly to see if it fixes this.
As I mentioned in the blog post, I "think" the user edit right on the listing method is best if you just want to minimize the Dr. dupe. Easier than claiming the Dr. listing to change it and safer I think too.
So I just did the edit right on the listing. (Be sure you are NOT logged into the client account that manages that listing.)
I got rid of practice name so Dr listing would not compete with practice NAP and corrected the backwards Dr name. THEN also changed site link from home page to Dr. bio page link.
SO QUICK AND EASY! No verification, no waiting for pin and no screwing around in Map Maker!
LESS THAN 2 DAYS - DONE DEAL! As I've mentioned before doing user edits on the page is quick and easy, and for me they always get approved in about 2 days which is faster than a lot of dashboard edits. AND easier than doing in MM and having to beg for approvals.
Then I also noticed Google had changed his cats on the practice listing to bogus categories. So I just did a user edit on that last night and am waiting for the edit to go through.
Fingers crossed next update he'll be back in the blended. Will keep you posted and let you know if this works.
Just sharing a little experiment I did. Sort of a little mini case study.
Don't have time to do a big post with all the back story. Most of you are aware of the issue with practitioner dupes hurting rankings on main practice listing and the fact that Google usually won't remove practitioner dupes any more. If not, see this detailed post.
NOTE TO SEARCH ENGINE LAND READERS 2/17/15 - Andrew linked to this post which is old and just an experiment. Please read the post instead instead which is the main post on the subject.
THIS IS THE MAIN THREAD THAT EXPLAINS HOW TO MINIMIZE DUPES
<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-duplicates-merges/864-overcoming-google-practitioner-duplicate-listing-problems-dentists-attorneys.html">Overcoming Practitioner Duplicate Listing Problems for Dentists, Attorneys</a>
<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-duplicates-merges/864-overcoming-google-practitioner-duplicate-listing-problems-dentists-attorneys.html">Overcoming Practitioner Duplicate Listing Problems for Dentists, Attorneys</a>
So thought I'd share this little story and we'll see how it plays out.
I have an ex-client (Dentist) that I noticed took a drop in rankings and was disconnected in blended.
Still ranks high in organic due to the on-site I did, but dropped out of blended.
Before I started he was #31 organic and not listed in blended for "City Dentist". I got him up #3 blended after the on-site SEO I did. (Which was pretty good considering he's WAY outside the ranking radius for that city.)
(He's in a very large spread out metro area and is as far from city center as you can get. He also has a newer practice so not a ton of citations like the mature practices all over the city.)
Now due to the dupe dropped totally out of blended.
Although he's no longer a client, I do use him in my Local SEO training examples, so wanted to see if I could get him fixed up without having to contact him or charge him to do a bunch of extra work etc.
(Those of you who have taken my Local SEO training, it's the main listing I use in my Automated Local SEO template example.)
So checked into it and sure enough as I suspected it was a dupe that knocked him out of blended.
The dupe was formatted as follows: Typo Practice Name: Dr. Name Backwards. And it linked to site home page. (Just like the practice listing does.)
So I thought in addition to trying to do a quick easy fixer upper for him AND to test the strategy I blogged about (above) I would try a user edit right on the live listing. Partly to test how long user edits are currently taking to go live and partly to see if it fixes this.
As I mentioned in the blog post, I "think" the user edit right on the listing method is best if you just want to minimize the Dr. dupe. Easier than claiming the Dr. listing to change it and safer I think too.
So I just did the edit right on the listing. (Be sure you are NOT logged into the client account that manages that listing.)
I got rid of practice name so Dr listing would not compete with practice NAP and corrected the backwards Dr name. THEN also changed site link from home page to Dr. bio page link.
SO QUICK AND EASY! No verification, no waiting for pin and no screwing around in Map Maker!
LESS THAN 2 DAYS - DONE DEAL! As I've mentioned before doing user edits on the page is quick and easy, and for me they always get approved in about 2 days which is faster than a lot of dashboard edits. AND easier than doing in MM and having to beg for approvals.
Then I also noticed Google had changed his cats on the practice listing to bogus categories. So I just did a user edit on that last night and am waiting for the edit to go through.
Fingers crossed next update he'll be back in the blended. Will keep you posted and let you know if this works.