Can duplicate business listings effect in local SEO

Over the years Google has encouraged local SEO, but when your business appears multiple times in search listings, it can be counterproductive. While online presence is desirable, duplicate accounts may tend to thin your presence, and it is also against Google’s guidelines. It could be tempting, but multiple pages can attract penalties from Google.

A fine balance must be created while ensuring you don’t overstep your boundaries. Some suggestions will help you do that.

Why it is important

Duplicates must be avoided. Multiple listings lower consumer trust, lead to misinformation and affect local SEO negatively. Customers want to connect with you and forward their concerns. As a business, it is in your best interest to engage with them even if they have negative feedback. With multiple listings, your customers could end up interacting with one of the several pages you might have created intentionally to increase online presence, but don’t pay attention to.

Your customers can get the wrong message that your company (WAMP Infotech) ignores customer feedback. It may even seem as though there is no mechanism for customer grievance redressal. This can lead to a hamper reputation and a complete loss of goodwill.

What are considered duplicate Accounts

Most companies have multiple listings: company website, social media profiles, store or showroom websites, etc. Here are some rules inline with SEO best practices.

Fear of multiple listings doesn’t mean that you should wipe out all accounts. It is okay to have an official company account, an account for a store in a particular city, or websites of forward-facing departments within that store.

Google prohibits the listing of the same business across various categories. For example, a business can create pages like furniture stores, women’s clothing, men’s clothing, and many more. The objective behind such exercise can be aimed at increasing better reach. However, the best approach is to create a single page for the store and departmental pages under it.

How to remove multiple listings

Cleaning up multiple listings will resolve the problem and it is not difficult to do. If you have ownership of the listings, merge them into one page. If you don’t have ownership, you must claim the ownership and then verify it with company information. After all the pages are merged, manage the single listing.

Check out the maps

Some duplicate listings may be difficult to get rid of. In such situations, Google Map listings can help you. In Google Maps, choose the” suggest an edit” option and select “duplicate” or  “place is permanently closed or never existed” against a page that you wish to erase.

Upon receiving such feedback, Google reaches out to the page owners to check the correctness. In case you can’t gain control over the duplicate page, don’t worry. The page will lose significance when its owner will fail to verify its ownership.

Where to start

Google also helps you to weed out duplicate pages. Log in to your Google My Business account and check the “Duplicate Locations”, available under account summary. You will be able to view duplicate listings, and cluster them in one location. You can also delete the duplicates using the menu button visible next to each page.

Adhering to Google guidelines will not only ease your visibility to customers and boost your SEO.