Geo-modifiers in DBA Names for Local Franchise Owners

[Alana Balbes]

I had a huge question come up today about geo-modifiers from a marketing team that handles an entire franchise system. For the past year, we have been adding to over 22 directories using their DBA's that have geo-modifiers in it... Such as "____ of Greater Fairfield"...etc. These are all service-based companies.

I was wondering if anyone had any feedback on what the implications would be if we took these geo-modifiers out of the ones we have already loaded and just put the company name.

My questions are....
Would it affect ranking? Since we've been already doing listings for them for almost 2 years
Would you think this would cause a conflict in NAP?

If anyone has any advice...it would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Alana,

Great question, but I don't think I have enough info or am not clear on a couple things.

Are you asking about the way names are listed on citations?
Or are you talking about the names in the Places dashboard?

Is the real name for each location "Franchise Name of Greater Fairfield" or is the real name just "Franchise Name"?

 

[Alana Balbes]

Hi Linda!

Thanks for your response. To answer your questions:

1) I am asking about the way the names are listed in both the citations and Google Places. We currently have all of them saying "Franchise of Greater Fairfield", so when we also create a Yahoo Local listing, the name is also "Franchise of Greater Fairfield"


2) The name on their website was indeed saying "Franchise of Greater Fairfield", but they were thinking of changing their websites to just saying "Franchise Name" and take out the rest of the DBA and we were wondering if that was going to hurt them or not.

Does this help?

Thanks so much!

 

[Linda Buquet]

2) The name on their website was indeed saying "Franchise of Greater Fairfield", but they were thinking of changing their websites to just saying "Franchise Name"

But the question in #2 is what is the REAL name.

You can list the name on the site or directories any way you want.

The question is what is the real legal name? How do people make out the checks? How is the name listed on the franchise documents?

Because if the real name is "Franchise" for each location - that's the way it should be everywhere. For instance SUBWAY franchises are all listed as "SUBWAY? Restaurants" everywhere on all the Place pages. To list one as "SUBWAY of Greater Fairfield" when that is not part of the official name would be considered GEO stuffing the title. And that's the #1 reason listings get suspended is KW or GEO stuffing title.

However on the other hand if ALL the citations are for Name+ City and have always been that way and now they go to change it, it could still hurt them. Changing name in general, in any way could affect ranking and/or reviews. Plus dropping city from name specifically could drop ranking as well.

But if city was added against guidelines and is a violation, then it should be fixed. BUT again still could rock the boat.

Sorry, I just re-read your 1st post. Sounds like city IS IN the DBA already and that's the real name. If so, then why would they want to change it and remove city?

So it's tough working blind and kinda depends on the real world situation, but in a nutshell, without having the full picture those are my thoughts.