A question on duplicate content and it's effect on local organic SEO

[Wirenut]

I have read a lot into arguments back and forth over duplicate content.  I have a question about it but this is specific to local businesses and organic results, not the 3-pack or Maps results.

I am a member of a contractor forum in which there has been an argument in the business section about this topic.  The question is essentially this:

Let's say a plumbing contractor in Florida has a great website with 20 town based landing pages that have great content and give him very high rankings when people in those towns search for a plumber.  His town based landing pages come up higher than all the other plumbers in the organic results, even the plumbers who are physically based on those towns.

Now let's say, since he is only worried about the towns he services in Florida, that he lets other contractors in different states use his content, just changing out the business name and town names.  Since those other contractor's websites are in different states, they aren't competing with each other, a Florida contractor isn't going to come up when someone in Washington searches for a plumber in their town.

Would those other contractors get the same benefits from that good content as the first one who used it?  Would they get less benefit (not so good rankings)?  Or would they get penalized?

[Wirenut]

I hate bumping but this is something I am genuinely interested in.  Anyone with any info?

[Mike Friedman]

Two things:

1. The content has a minimal impact on rankings. Links and, in the case of local rankings, citations play a much bigger role than any content in rankings.
2. Google doesn't consider that duplicate content. Duplicate content is the same content showing up on the same site repeatedly. What you are talking about is syndicated content. 

[gnojham]

A rabbit had some babies in my back yard,  I did a search to find out some info about rabbits.  I opened the first few results that seemed to have what I was looking for,  and at least 2 of the pages (1 page per domain) had the exact same content. 

Just to give you an idea of how it probably won't matter in your plumbing example

[Wirenut]

Thanks for the posts guys.  The reason why this came up is because a lot of new electrician and plumbing contractors would copy and paste everything from another website onto their own when they first made it.  And it wouldn't rank.  Then when they finally smartened up and made original content, they would finally start ranking.  So it was assumed that Google was penalizing them for copying other websites.

Mike, I didn't realize citations were that important.  Do you think using a service like Yext is worth it?  

[Mike Friedman]

4 hours ago, Wirenut said:

Thanks for the posts guys.  The reason why this came up is because a lot of new electrician and plumbing contractors would copy and paste everything from another website onto their own when they first made it.  And it wouldn't rank.  Then when they finally smartened up and made original content, they would finally start ranking.  So it was assumed that Google was penalizing them for copying other websites.

Mike, I didn't realize citations were that important.  Do you think using a service like Yext is worth it?  

Every single one of my local clients is signed up with Yext. 

[Wirenut]

47 minutes ago, Mike Friedman said:

Every single one of my local clients is signed up with Yext. 

So that tells me it's worth the price.

Do you have any tips for using them?  I got a call from them a year or so ago to get me to join for $500 instead of the normal $900, but I wasn't happy because when I used the free tool it was very inaccurate, even saying that I didn't have a Google listing.  And then I worry about it messing up the good Google listing I have now.

I'll spend the money if it will be worth it in the long run.

[Mike Friedman]

12 hours ago, Wirenut said:

So that tells me it's worth the price.

Do you have any tips for using them?  I got a call from them a year or so ago to get me to join for $500 instead of the normal $900, but I wasn't happy because when I used the free tool it was very inaccurate, even saying that I didn't have a Google listing.  And then I worry about it messing up the good Google listing I have now.

I'll spend the money if it will be worth it in the long run.

There really is not anything complicated to using them. It is all pretty straight foward. 

Their "normal" price is around $500 and has been for several years. If anyone told you $900, that was just a sales gimmick. 

Yext really won't change anything in a listing you don't tell it to. The big advantage with them is they have exclusive access to a lot of directories now. They have worked out deals that keep everyone out except through Yext. 

In some smaller markets, I have clients that were ranking nowhere in the top 20 and are now ranking #1 with almost nothing but Yext. In more competitive markets the difference won't be so dramatic. 

 

[Wirenut]

Gotcha, I'll give it a try.

My biggest competition isn't other electrician, it's the big websites.  Searching for "electrician near me", "electrician in -townname-", etc. gives 2 pages of Yelp, businessfinder.nj.com, thumbtack, porch, houzz, elocalelectrician, angieslist, yellowbook, manta, indeed, whodoyou, whitepages, homeadvisor, etc. etc.

Searching my own town that I am based out of I can beat most of them.  But for all the other local towns that I have to advertise to using landing pages it's been hard to beat them.  

[Wunderkind]

On 6/11/2017 at 2:29 PM, Wirenut said:

Gotcha, I'll give it a try.

My biggest competition isn't other electrician, it's the big websites.  Searching for "electrician near me", "electrician in -townname-", etc. gives 2 pages of Yelp, businessfinder.nj.com, thumbtack, porch, houzz, elocalelectrician, angieslist, yellowbook, manta, indeed, whodoyou, whitepages, homeadvisor, etc. etc.

Searching my own town that I am based out of I can beat most of them.  But for all the other local towns that I have to advertise to using landing pages it's been hard to beat them.  

I have seen businesses build links to their Yelp, Angies List, Manta, etc. listings as well. I forget where it was that someone showed me, but when you searched for a real estate agent in this town, one real estate agent had 5 of the spots on page one. There was his website, a Yelp listing, a Facebook page, and 2 other listings. I forget which directories exactly.