Top 3 Organic listing but no local listing

[warrenpd]

Hi,

Anyone else have the same issue where you are ranking really high in the serps organically but you have no local rankings? What do you do once you have fixed all of your NAP issues and added more citations than your competitors but you still aren't showing up in the 7 pack?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Warren,

I call this a disconnected listing. Ranks high in organic but locked out of the 7 pack.

There are a wide variety of reasons it can happen including a ranking penalty due to violations on the local side of the house, various types of dupe listings and all kinds of other things.

If you care to share a link to the listing we can try to help figure it out.

Moving this down to help and support since it's about a specific listing.

 

[warrenpd]

Thanks Linda.

Here is the link to the listing https://plus.google.com/+TheUmanskyLawFirmOrlando
Any help would be really appreciated.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Oh dear, you have several major problems - any of which could cause this problem.
No wonder this listing is disconnected.

It's going to take time for me to finish researching and document.

Can you tell me is this your listing and are you the atty or are you a SEO or consultant or???
(Just so I know who I'm talking to and how basic I need to get w/ the info.)

 

[warrenpd]

I'm an SEO who just got handed the account. I have been working in SEO for around 6 years but always on national organic listings. I'm not a novice by any means so feel free to get as technical as possible.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi again Warren,

Thanks for the added details. I have carpal pain and limited time so can't write a book to explain how to fix everything. So I'll just start by explaining what the problems are.

I'll preface by saying dupes almost always create ranking problems but there are different types of dupes.

1st here are all the listings that are an issue

1) Listing 1 and 2 are exact dupes, that's a big problem for rankings. Same NAP.

2) Listing #2 is the one that's claimed that you listed above. It has what's known as description spam. Too much KW repetition. In local, repeating city even twice in the description can cause a 10 point ranking penalty. Orlando is repeated about 10 times and other KWs are too repetitious too.

I've seen excessive descriptions like this cause a 150 pt ranking drop that carries a penalty hangover that can last for up to 5 months after you clean it all up.

3) Listing #3 is what we call a practitioner dupe. It's a different type of dupe that can't be merged or deleted so needs to be handled differently than #1 which is a scraped exact dupe. I have a whole strategy for dealing with these.

4) #4 and 5 are practitioner dupes that are marked "Permanently Closed". If they are no longer at the practice, this is the correct way per Google to handle the listings. To mark them closed.

HOWEVER there is a bug or unintended consequence. In most cases I investigate, if there is a listing marked closed at that address and phone #, it almost always suppresses the ranking of the main listing. Shouldn't but does.

Didn't have time to do a deep dive, there could be more. This is just at 1st glance.

Any of these problems alone can cause disconnected listings so I'm not sure which is the main culprit or if it's a combo. Each of these problems can take multiple steps and probably several weeks to resolve. Aren't you glad you got this client???
(Sorry I know this is not what you wanted to hear.)

One of the things I really stress in my training is to do an analysis of the client before taking them on, to try to uncover problems like this. Local can be VERY time consuming when you have problems like this to fix. Local troubleshooting like this goes way beyond standard SEO, so ideally you could have explained to client they had lots of problems so you could build in the extra time required to fix them.

Let me know if this is new news or if you already knew about the dupes and violations. Let me know if this makes sense so far.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Oh and here in post #2 I explain in general how to troubleshoot disconnected listings and other ranking problems.

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/14266-local-troubleshooting-best-practices.html#post32552">Local Troubleshooting Best Practices</a>

 

[warrenpd]

Thank you so much. I read your guide on how to handle practitioner duplicates. Hopefully that will be cleared up soon. I think the biggest issue is the keyword spam you mentioned in the business description. The first duplicate is sort of confusing. Its one of those situations where I keep deleting it but Google keeps creating a new. Either way thanks again for the help it is greatly appreciated! It looks like I'm in for a few late nights .

 

[Linda Buquet]

I read your guide on how to handle practitioner duplicates. Hopefully that will be cleared up soon.

Oh good, that's the ticket on that one.

The first duplicate is sort of confusing. Its one of those situations where I keep deleting it but Google keeps creating a new.

Normally that happens when listings are different enough they won't reconcile. Only diff I see is Street vs St. So it should merge.

Not sure what you mean when you say you keep deleting it that top one. But you need to reach out to phone support and have them merge the 2 that are the same name. They may have something they can do on the back end to stop the madness. ;-)

 

[Laustin1878]

(I know this isn't related and doesn't belong here but I felt compelled to comment)

Just an aside, Linda, you are awesome! Your dedication to this forum, local search and the likes never fails to amaze me. You spend countless hours helping out complete strangers and it just baffles me. THANK YOU!

OP, great advice here.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Awww Luke... Thanks so much for commenting. It really means a lot!

Where's my hug smilie?