I received a request today to change a Guest House Listing details in the MyPE Directory. As the listing was a free one I opted to rather delete the listing than change the details and let the owner re-submit for a free listing in the new name.
This got me wondering at the stupidity of buying a Guest House and then changing the name. From a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) point of view it is a rather expensive exercise as the new owner will lose all those back links from directory listings, social media, blogs, travels news sites and the like.
Over years the number of backlinks to a site do accumulate and it is well nigh impossible to go back and change them.
Let’s take a look at one new listing on the MyPE Directory as an example:
- On MyPE alone the listing will link back to the business web site in a number of places such as the category, detailed info, new, popular, search pages, mobile pages and even from news articles.
- That same listing will be carried on many sites that aggregate the Directory RSS feeds.
- That same listing is featured on the MyPE Twitter account, various Facebook accounts and retweeted accounts, new listings side bar and footer.
- Often the listing will be placed on similar and competing directories.
So, one listing on MyPE will result in many listings/mentions on other sites and on various internal MyPE pages.
This is the reason why I STRONGLY suggest that people do NOT change the titles of their listings or even the name of their business, unless they are prepared for a drop in exposure on and off line with a concurrent increase in ad spend to maintain their sales levels.
