How effective are subdomains with Geographic names for Local SEO?

[steaprok]

Recently we added sub domains to one of my clients site. Ex:
orlando.samplesite.com, tampa.samplesite.com.

Within 1 week of getting indexed they were #1 - #5. They were there for 4 weeks, and now got dropped to like 15.

What are your experiences with subdomains for local seo?

[inbound]

Subdomains have been heavily abused for this in the past and I'd guess that they are now a minor red flag (a trusted site may be able to get away with it - but a new site with 200 subdomains isn't likely to). Is there any reason why you can't put the pages on the normal domain?

If you want to rank well in MSN then subdomains work well (at least the last time I looked), but if you want Google traffic then I think there are better methods.

[steaprok]

Cool! Thanks Man! Your right about MSN, it took #1 in a flash. Its only 5 subdomains now, but in the future when they expand territories it can be more and become a problem. And no, no reason other than to try and get rankings did we use the subdomians.

I had seen it used previously and it had worked, what suggestions could you offer regarding Google and ranking for geo sensitive keyword phrases with them. I noticed that in Google they were ranking quickly for those cities, and within 2 -3 weeks, got dropped to 10+. Wonder what happened?
Nothing changed on the page, only changes off page were the addition of some links from a squidoo lens we created. Wonder if that had a negative affect in Google since there was that Squidoo/Google issue? We also tried out some ads on CL with some links, any thoughts on that?

Any one know about optimizing for Google Local have any help?

How do they calculate ranking for local listings?

Now with universal search and how G is integrating all of these different elements into the results, anyone have any thoughts on how optimization has changed due to this..

Thanks

[idolw]

i use subdomains because i like them.
never had problems with them.
just do what our bigger brother google tells us to do: forget about search engines ;)

[inbound]

no reason other than to try and get rankings did we use the subdomians.

hopefully you will have no issues, but the same sentiments are the reason excessive use of subdomains may be seen as a red flag.

If you are sticking to subdomains for each location that you have a physical branch in then keeping the subdomains should not be a problem. More on that later.

I noticed that in Google they were ranking quickly for those cities, and within 2 -3 weeks, got dropped to 10+. Wonder what happened?

Fresher/new pages often get a boost, then settle to their 'correct' position. I wouldn't worry about it.

What suggestions could you offer regarding Google and ranking for geo sensitive keyword phrases with them

Any one know about optimizing for Google Local have any help?

Good local rankings can be helped by making sure you have complete and accurate contact details on the site. This helps Google connect your yellow pages listing with a domain. On that point you should try to get all of your branches listed in the appropriate yellow pages sites, a free listing for each physical location will start the process of Google trying to match a site to the listing.

A site that we run takes its core data from the same source as Google Local UK so we end up being listed in the 'web pages' section of Google Local for many companies. You will want your site to be listed for your business instead of people like us so you should check to see if your details appear on Google Local and then try to figure out which data source they came from.

Adding areas you cover to pages in an unobtrusive way may also help you. Try adding the major areas that you cover into tiles such as:

Widget Repairs, Anytown : Also serving Othertown, Nearbyplace and Fourtharea.

How do they calculate ranking for local listings?

A lot of Local Search systems use an arbitary Zipcode that is their interpretation of the centre of an area. If you already are in an area then you won't want to re-locate, but as Google Local becomes more important you may want to keep an eye on whether your address will matter.