Low Quality Citations

[Oliver Keates]

I ran a search and noticed a competitor had alot of citations with low DA. Is it worth submitting my website to multiple low DA citation websites?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Not unless they're niche sites that actually rank for different branded terms for the competitors.

 

[Oliver Keates]

thanks, I use WhiteSpark local citation finder, are there any other good methods at the moment of finding citations?

 

[JoyHawkins]

That tool is the one I'd recommend along with the one BrightLocal has.

 

[Oliver Keates]

I also use Bright local using the citation tracker feature. I was wondering whether there is a way of searching on google to find niche citations?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I usually just search the brand names of several competitors and craft a list of the top ranking directory sites.

 

[mborgelt]

I agree with Joy. Unless the directory ranks or if most of your competitors are listed there then there are other directories/tactics that will move the meter more.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I also use Bright local using the citation tracker feature. I was wondering whether there is a way of searching on google to find niche citations?

Bright Local has a great resource for industry specific citations - Top Local Citations by Business Category

 

[Oliver Keates]

@Colan Nielsen thanks, i'll bookmark this. Have you found their is a limit to the number of citations you can build for a business? Darren from whitespark a while back said you can exhaust the number of citations built for a business?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Absolutely. All you need is the top 30 or so local directories plus some niche citations and that is good. Beyond that has a drastic diminishing return on your efforts.

 

[Oliver Keates]

@Colan Nielsen I agree. Going back to conversations i had a few years ago with Eric Ward i think hyper local link building is still relevant if done correctly even if it isn't a nofollow link.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Agreed. The backlink is only one part of the citation.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Oliver Keates, Joy and Colan pretty much covered it. There is a point of diminishing return in citation-building, and one hits it fast.

On those low-prominence sites, the only other criterion I'd look at is: can customers write reviews there? If so, and if you'd be willing to ask a couple of customers to review you on a given site, I'd probably add it to the pile.

 

[Tim Colling]

There is something to watch out for when it comes to those industry-specific sites. In at least one case, caring dot com, they will take your listing information and then if you don't pay them for a paid listing, they have been known to use your directory information but place call center numbers and "send information" forms that divert leads to their own lead gen centers. In effect, they're using your information to steal divert leads to themselves. See https://eldersell.com/online-marketing/home-care-lead-theft-directories-a-growing-problem/

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Have there been any case studies of diminished returns at some point for business listings? I agree that at some point it probably hits a wall, but that's just speculation on my part.

Does anyone have any good case studies? Any official word from Google?

 

[Stefan Somborac]

BrightLocal publishes a list of the "Top 50" citation sites for a few different countries. Whitespark has a similar "Top 30". You would expect the first 30 on the BrightLocal list to align closely with Whitespark's list of 30 but they don't (at least for Canadian citations). In fact, there's an astounding disparity! Regardless, between the two lists, you get a good picture of what this two big players in local see as generic but important citation sites.

I've got a really interesting case right now. I'm helping a new massage therapy clinic establish an online presence. The business that ranks at the top of the the local 3-pack, for a few different search terms, is remarkable:
- it hasn't claimed its Google My Business listing
- so it has zero Google reviews
- has no website
- and has no social media accounts. (That's right: not even a Facebook page!)

(Searches performed from >30 km away to reduce proximity influence.)

The ONLY information about this business that exists online is its citations. So, as far as I can tell (please let me know if I'm missing something!) Google has ranked it at the top of the pack based on citations alone.

To expand on what Joy wrote:

Searching for this business (using <business name> + <street address>) I'm finding all of its citations. It's obviously got most of the important ones (except Facebook!) and many industry-specific, niche sites that you might find in a list of "niche" citation sites. E.g. rmtfind.com

But what I'm also finding is that it has lots of hyper-local citations. These would never be found in a list of top "niche" citations; they serve such a small geographic area.

So, I look at "niche" citations as being either industry-specific or hyper-local.

(Another example of hyper-local: knowledge panels for a bunch of coffee shops in Toronto show reviews from blogTO which, obviously, is only relevant in Toronto.)

Right now I'm helping my client nail down the top 30 or so citations AND mirror the hyper-local and industry-specific citations of the top-ranked competitors. I'm optimistic that this will help bump the strange listing from the top of the 3-pack. Time will tell. (Happy to report back if anyone's interested.)

 

[Oliver Keates]

@JoshuaMackens @Stefan Somborac @JoyHawkins . Its great to use third party tools to build citations, We have to remember google changes its algorithm on a regular basis.

It would be good to get official word from Google of the weight the top generic citations carry opposed to hyper local niche specific directories where you can speak to the webmaster by phone or email.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

@JoshuaMackens @Stefan Somborac @JoyHawkins . Its great to use third party tools to build citations, We have to remember google changes its algorithm on a regular basis.

It would be good to get official word from Google of the weight the top generic citations carry opposed to hyper local niche specific directories where you can speak to the webmaster by phone or email.

You hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, Google rarely talks about anything and when they do, it's not a mention of something as obscure as citations (don't get me wrong, I love citations ). We might be waiting awhile/forever on that one :/

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

It helps to remember the region/country you're in too.
In many instances in Australia, I don't need 30 or 50. Often 20 quality ones will work just fine. Emphasis is on *quality*.

A lot of the low quality sites are dropping off the web entirely or have knobbled functionality to update/claim/add listings.