Can Registering Your Local Business Hurt Organic Rankings?
Wednesday 05 Mar 2008
Greetings from inside the SEOigloo!
This week, I started a local search thread at Cre8asite Forums. My friend, Kulpreet Singh, asked a question that I felt was so good, and likely to be of concern to so many local business owners, that I am going to post it here and ask for my readers’ to please weigh in with their opinions on this:
I was wondering – so if you register with Google’s local business center, does it automatically begin to cut away from your rankings on keywords with the names of other cities?
This is one of the doubts that prevented me from signing one of my business websites up as local. We are also optimized for other cities, but could do better in rankings for our own city / province.
I can really see the reasoning behind this question, and am betting that many people would be wondering the same thing. This is how I answered Kulpreet Singh:
My *feeling* on this is that because local appears to be governed by its own algo (talking about Google here) ranking well within Maps for a specific city is not going to affect your organic rankings for a broader range in the organic SERPs. The organic rankings will be based on your on-page/linking/user behavior/SEO factors, whereas the local rankings will be based upon proximity to city centroid/category/maybe user ratings, etc.
I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to comment on this subject. Do you see any danger of registering with Google’s Local Business center limiting your organic ability to rank well for other cities and regions beyond the one your LBC listing is built upon?
Your thoughts much appreciated.
6 comments Wednesday 05 Mar 2008 | admin | Local SEO
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Hi Miriam
My understanding is that at this point the two databases are completely separate.
The only example I can freely cite is:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cosmetic+surgery+san+diego
http://www.google.com/search?q=cosmetic+surgery+la+jolla
http://www.ljcsc.com/ is the point of focus.
You’ll notice they appear on the map and in the #3 position organically (at least that’s where it is on my map.
As it turns out these guys are physically located in La Jolla, a suburb of San Diego. There is no impact on either organic or out of area map given their primary location per the LBC in La Jolla.
In La Jolla, they appear #1, but for months they’ve always bounced around the top 3-5 in San Diego with no impact from the maps overlay.
I’d love to hear Mike’s opinion.
Will
Good examples, Will, and certainly supportive of the position that one need not fear Google thinking something is only relevant for small city region.
I appreciate those examples. Lovely, as always, to have your thoughts!
Miriam
My opinion (remember that opinions are like noses, everybody has one) is that there is no negative impact that a local listing could/would have on organic listings in other cities.
Look at it from Google point of view. They want to provide the best results to a query. If that is a local 10 pack then it is a local 10 pack. If it is an organic listing than it will be that.
What the writer was implying was that Google would “punish” a solid organic listing by virue of having a Local listing.
The only punishments we have heard of Google metting out have been for egregious spamming, not for doing it by the book.
I have read patents from Bill Slawski that would inidcate that a strong organic presence will add strength to a local listing.
If one were to imaging a local listing influencing an organic listing it could only be imagined as a positive influence…ie adding weight to an already strong orgainic result…We do see something like that in the Authoritative OneBox.
But for Google to set up a negatively reinforcing system of any sort as a part of the standard algos is hard to conceive.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Very good to hear your thoughts on this. Some noses are more experienced than others!
I know that I have personally seen what appeared to be a jump in organic rankings after an LBC listing got picked up, but this was only in one case and there were a few other factors that might have caused it.
In any case, I have never seen it have a negative effect and that seems to be the consensus of opinion on this.
What you mention about Bill – that’s a subject I hope we will be able to learn more about as time goes by. It is challenging to understand when and where a crossover of authority might happen from a website to its local listing component. If site A has a 50 page website with 2000 inbound links and multiple good citations, will it get a better local rank than site B which has a 2 page website, 10 inbound links and few citations?
How much does the local algo cross reference the organic one? I’d surely like to know.
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to this, Mike.
Miriam
This question gave me pause… I had not considered this possibility. After reading the comments in this post and doing a couple of searches and finding results similar to what Will found above… I feel pretty good that they are separate. Thanks for raising and interesting discussion Miriam.
Hi Tim -
Yes, I know what you mean. It wasn’t something I had thought of before, myself, but it seems logical that many business owners might wonder this. Consensus of opinion seems to be that local registration will only help, not harm.
Thanks for stopping by! Always so nice to have you here.
Miriam