A location page tells people in one area what you offer there: the address or service area, hours, staff, prices, directions and local work. Build one only where you genuinely serve customers. Google's spam policies call pages made to rank for similar queries, differing only by place name, doorway abuse, and that can hurt the whole site.
| Signal | Genuine location page | Doorway risk |
|---|---|---|
| Reason to exist | You have a branch or really serve the area | Only to rank for the town's name |
| Content | Facts that change per place: staff, hours, jobs, directions | Same text with the town swapped |
| Where it leads | Answers the visitor on the page | Funnels everyone to one other page |
| How it is linked | Part of a clear locations menu | Hidden, or only in a long footer list |
Updated
The safe test is simple: if you deleted the town name, would anything on the page be different from your other location pages? Plan each page in the tool below. It counts the facts unique to each place and flags pages that would be near copies, so you fix them before Google sees them.
Only facts true for that place count. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Google's LocalBusiness docs describe url as the fully-qualified URL of the specific business location, so each branch page carries its own block.
Hours use openingHoursSpecification. Change dayOfWeek, opens and closes to match the branch.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Bakery",
"name": "Harbour Street Bakery, Portsmouth",
"url": "https://example.com/locations/portsmouth",
"telephone": "+44 23 9200 0000",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "12 Harbour Street",
"addressLocality": "Portsmouth",
"postalCode": "PO1 2AB",
"addressCountry": "GB"
},
"openingHoursSpecification": [{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday"],
"opens": "07:00",
"closes": "16:00"
}]
}The address or the service area, opening hours, a direct phone line, a map or directions, parking or transit notes, the people who work there, services or prices that differ, and recent jobs or reviews from that area.
Write the page as if a customer from that place emailed asking whether you can help them. Answer that email.
Google's guidance on helpful content asks whether you are producing lots of content on many topics hoping some performs well, and whether you are using extensive automation to produce content on many topics. A yes to either for your location pages is a reason to cut back.
Not when they serve a real location with real local content. Google's examples of doorway abuse include pages for specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page, and substantially similar pages that sit closer to search results than a clear browsable hierarchy.
One per place you can honestly say something specific about. A plumber covering six towns with jobs and reviews in each could justify six; covering sixty with nothing local to say could not.
The layout can match. The content inside it must differ in substance. Google's scaled content abuse policy targets many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings rather than help users.
No. A single business needs a good contact page and a Business Profile. Location pages matter once you have several branches or a wide service area.
Related: Local citations, Small business SEO, On-page SEO checklist, Schema markup generator, How to get your business on Google.
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