Have you got 5 minutes to confirm something for me please?

[AndyBo]

Hi all,

I am looking to clean up the directories/listings for my wife's business using Moz Local and have run into an anomaly and I'm not sure what to do for the best.

The business is here:
https://moz.com/local/search/Cherry trees holiday flats/YO12 7PE

According to Moz there are 2 verified listings (which both direct to the same page) but not any duplicates.

One is Cherry Trees Holiday Flats (which has an overall score of 82% but has the street address twice in the address but not in G+ listing). The other is Cherry Trees Holiday Flats Scarborough (overall score 90%) - which obviously has the location in it...

My question is - which would you use to send out to the aggregators? The listing already ranks (in Google) for our main keyword and don't want to jeopardise this.

Thoughts please?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Scott Barnett]

The way it's been explained to me (which I don't know that I totally understand) is that Moz Local uses both Facebook and G+ to verify listings. If your business is coming up twice, it's because one is G+ and one if FB. Can you confirm that is where the different addresses come from?

Which aggregators are you talking about? Infogroup/Acxiom/Localeze?

 

[Dillon Brickhouse]

Hi there,

Unless "Scarborough" is actually in the official business name, I would go with the one that doesn't include it.. Using the city in the name in your listings can be viewed as keyword stuffing by search engines. Also, your Google My Business listing does not include it, and I like to use that listing as a starting point if I need to make this kind of decision.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Andy
You're at a crossroads. If you added "Scarborough" to your Google Places page you would probably be fine, because Google has not been enforcing its rules. Do I suggest doing so? No. Chances are that Google will eventually crack down again.

If you're OCD about "NAP consistency" you might have Moz Local push the name without "Scarborough" and remove that part manually where needed. But don't expect that to help your Places rankings.

Personally, my suggestion would be either to (1) leave well enough alone or to (2) change your name legally and officially to "Cherry Trees Holiday Flats Scarborough" and benefit from Google's absurd overemphasis on the "business name" field in a legitimate way.

@Scott
You hit it on the beak. Moz Local simply wants to square the listings you want to create with your Google+ and Facebook page simply so that it's harder to pump bogus businesses / business info into Moz Local.

 

[AndyBo]

Thank you so much Scott, Dillon & Phil who took the time to answer - I really appreciate it.

As the listing is ranking for our main keyword in the 3 pack I think I am going to leave it well alone for the time being - I don't want to risk a loss in ranking by cleaning up the listings.

Will probably have to cross that bridge at some stage - but if it ain't broke don't fix it..right?