Seeing Double? 2 G+ Local Links in SERPs? Here's Why?

[Linda Buquet]

A user in the Google forum reported a bug because Google has DOUBLE links to his Google+ page in the SERPs. I saw the issue pop up at Search Engine Roundtable so popped over to investigate.

When I saw the user screen shot I knew what was up because it’s been reported here in the private Local Search Pros forum a couple times, so I had already started investigating and was going to escalate to Google if I thought it was a bug.

Don't think it's a bug, think it's by design.

Here is what it looks like. Have you seen any double links like this and wondered???



Jade weighed in and said "Interesting... looking into it. Thanks for reporting."

Then I explained I've been investigating and here's what I think is going on. Here's my reply from the G forum.

Jade this has been coming up a lot at my forum too and I've been investigating so had not reported yet. I've seen it on a TON of listings so it's not just a bug with the user above.

Here's what I suspect is happening. And this only happens with MERGED pages (G+ Business verified pages)

One link goes to the posts page and one goes to the about page which is where the reviews live. So with listings that DO have reviews it would not look like a double redundant link. One link would go to G+ Local (the posts) the other would 'display' # of reviews and link to the about page.

In his example above no one has a merged listing they just have G+ Local listings, therefore only have a single link. Either to the # of reviews IF they have any or to the page if they don't. But if you find someone merged WITH reviews it would look fine. It's just merged with 0 reviews that looks redundant and odd.

BUT when you think about it 2 links is better than 1. AND one link also saying G+ is MUCH BETTER than if it said ZERO reviews.

EXAMPLE: I believe the middle one below is how it's designed to look AND how the user above's listing would look if he had reviews.

​

Here is a link to the attorney listing above in the SERPs if you want to check it out.
los angeles personal injury attorney (For me he's F.)

Here's the Google forum thread if you want to read in full or follow in case any updates or new comments come up.

So have you guys seen this? Does what I explained make sense?
Do you think that's what's up???

 

[Phil Rozek]

Hey Linda,

Great catch! I saw this for the first time a few minutes ago.

Here’s one in-the-wild example:

Storm Solutions Roofing & Contracting - Google Search

Definitely ain’t no bug. In all cases so far, only “merged” (AKA “fully social”) Google+Local pages have the two links showing up – meaning, of course, that only bricks-and-mortar businesses seem to be eligible for the double links at this stage (and that service-area businesses will just have to wait for yet another feature).

My two cents? Google’s latest push on Google+.

 

[Andrew Forster]

Hey Linda,

I'm seeing this for one of our clients. One of the links goes to the 'about' section of their Google + page, the other goes to the clients recent posts within their Google+ account.

Not sure if this is the same for everyone...

 

[baltimoreseocompany]

Yup..I see same thing but pointing two different section like Andrew said..

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for confirming guys.

Do they both have 0 reviews? Because then I think one link would display # of reviews (IF they had them) and go to "about" and the other would go to "posts".

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Linda

That's exactly right; each link goes to different tabs. An in-the-wild example:

barnes law llp los angeles - Google Search

 

[Andrew Huskinson]

It may be an engineers attempt to recover from a hiccup which caused a lot of Reviews to disappear and they forgot to check for duplicates.

I have been posting test reviews to the big thread on lost reviews and all have shown and the first 14 accepted Edits as well.

Only the first poster has noticed so far and I removed the test review.

 

[Andrew Forster]

For our own company listing here: https://plus.google.com/110088161503093641906/

We have 4 reviews, so one of the tabs on google shows '4 reviews' and the other just says google+ which goes here: https://www.google.ca/search?q=adst...:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb

(to our posts section)

 

[Keenan Glass]

I'm also seeing links to interior pages under the two G+ links. Has that been going on for a while?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Keenan,

Interior links to the site? Are you talking regular sitelinks? If so, yes for quite some time, but you don't see them real often and only for certain sites.

If that's not what you are talking about, can you post a screenshot so we can see what you mean?

 

[Keenan Glass]

Yes sitelinks in the blended result. I hadn't seen that before.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Now I'm seeing 3 links - at least when I'm logged into my Google account:



If you sign out you'll see just the two links. I didn't notice this before.