Capital Hosting

Most business owners think an unclaimed Google Places listing should not rank higher than a claimed listing.

It's worse if the unclaimed listing is ranked higher then an optimized Places listing.

These two occurrences could be perfect examples of unexplained phenomena.
And to a point, that's almost true because of the sometimes sporadic search results from search engines.

But in reality, if the claimed listing is compared to the unclaimed listing, the many differences are apparent to the experienced eye.

If an optimized Google Places listing is being out ranked by one that's not claimed, these are the steps to follow.

#1: Search the phone number of the optimized listing and make sure all the results are for that business. Disregard any results with different area codes. There is a chance that the previous owner of the phone number continues to come up in search results.

If this is the case, the directories still showing the previous telephone number owner must be contacted and shown proof that the listing is in error and should be changed.

Eventually, the incorrect listing will be updated but it could take up to 6 months.

To help overcome this, the claimed listing must have a huge number of citations, all showing the exact same company name, address and telephone number. Exact must be absolutely literally applied across the board. Any deviation in the way the name, address and phone number is listed will hurt the ranking.

#2: Search the address of the optimized listing and make sure all the results are for that business. A previous tenant or owner may be still listed at that address. Again, the directories with the inaccurate information must be contacted with a request to change.

Note: Having search results with a telephone number and address showing different businesses raises a red flag and Google will show other listings ahead of the red flagged listings, if they're shown at all. Google wants their customer, the searcher, to get the most accurate, relevant search result as fast as possible.

Fixing the phone number/address problem will take awhile so patience is needed.

#3: Search the citations for the optimized Google Places listing by searching the company name and city to see how the company name, address and phone numbers are listed. They must be exactly same across all listings. Any deviations must be corrected by contacting the directory with the different listing and requesting a change. They will change it but it could take as long as 6 months.

#4: Search the citations for the unclaimed Google Places listing by searching the company name and city. Check the first 100 listings noting the directories and other content holders that have information.

The claimed Places listing must match the unclaimed listing citation by citation. Once the citations are matched, the claimed listing should get at least 10 percent more citations.

Following these 4 steps should eventually rank the claimed Google Places listing ahead of the unclaimed listing.

A free, no obligation inspection and report of your Google Places listing are available from an expert.

A Google Places listing must be done correctly to have the highest ranking possible. Vincent Press also has an easy to use free guide for the local business owner if they want to complete their own listing.