An agency consulting client asked my opinion on using the popular citation building service: CitationBuilderPro.
It’s a common name in Local SEO and agency circles. Greyhats have a particular affinity. It’s an easy upsell for agencies.
My view is not restricted to CitationBuilderPro and includes the handful of similar providers in the same space. Admittedly, I sell a citation package that I build personally to clients where appropriate.
Disclaimer – This was a quick client response. Typos and snafus are expected. “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” – Mark Twain.
Answer:
It will depend on each citing website on a case-by-case basis.
Firstly, I am against citations where there is no control over anything else that may or may not appear on the page. Adverts from other companies, paid adverts other companies, citations from other companies, content from other companies (videos, articles, images), etc.. I say “companies” generally. Adverts and content from competing businesses are obviously even worse for brand image.
CitationBuilderPro gives Daily Motion as an example. See this citation on Daily Motion for ‘garden services north london’: https://bit.ly/3vNeqqa .
The video is there in itself. See the citation link in the description. Till that point I don’t have a problem.
But scroll down and see what else appears on a Daily Motion citation. In this case, it is nonsense videos. In some cases it can be nonsense adverts. On some platforms, competitor adverts will appear on your citation page.
This happens on WordPress.com. And thus why I don’t use WordPress.com for citations because they show adverts on your free website. You have no control unless you pay monthly – which is pointless for a citation. Here is another example: https://acflory.wordpress.com/2018/02/14/wordpress-do-you-know-what-your-blog-really-looks-like-to-visitors/ .
Secondly, citations sometimes do appear in search results. Search my client businesses name: “von der nonke”. Four citations which I built are on Page 1 for the brand name. Now as a potential customer landing on the pages, it is only my business you are exposed to. It is a simple web page. But there is nothing on those pages (except the header and footer) which is beyond my control.
It happens mainly with small business websites. Otherwise QDD kicks in for bigger brands.
I gave Daily Motion and WordPress.com as two examples. CitationBuilderPro are selling 50 citations. Will other citations have the same problem? I don’t know.
Other things to consider with citations in general:
- Unstructured. CitationBuilderPro says the citations are unstructured. This is fine.
- Hacked forums. Some providers create forum accounts (even with backlinks) on old hacked forums. Your profile page is perfect, has a link, NAP, and contains no adverts or images. But the rest of the forum is inundated with viagra spam. You only notice if you actually take the time to browse forums threads.
- Non-Local Locations. This is problem is mainly for busiesses outside North America and Europe. For example, they will create an account for a South African business on Kijii Canda. I have seen cases like this also. I don’t think it will be harmful in anyway, and after all you are getting a backlink and that is almost always good, but it’s something to keep in mind for your expectation on the type of websites.
- Ensure that you will be getting a report of all the links they build. It’s also necessary that they provide you the username and password details for every account they create. It mustn’t be the case that you may need to change something in the future, and you have to pay them to do the change because they have the login details and don’t share it. Shady citation services do this.
In conclusion, citations are wonderful for local SEO. But if it means building citations on website where you don’t have full control, and any content can appear on your page such as third-party adverts and other user’s inappropriate content, it is not worth it.
Hope this helps.
If you disagree, comment below.
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