Are SEO Citations a Violation of Intellectual Property?

An SEO citation is a reference to any business within a website or blog. It typically includes the business’s name, address, and phone number. Although citations help users find local businesses and can positively impact search engine ranking, SEO citations on a national scale are virtually useless. Google, however, uses citations to confirm the legitimacy of a local business.

What Does a Citation Mean?

When a business is cited repeatedly and accurately it increases Google’s confidence that the business in question is real and reliable. Citations are important for local SEO as they determine which data is displayed in the “local block,” that snippet of map imagery with noted listings that comes up on any local search engine results page (SERP).

Although SEO citations are generally categorized as NAP (Name, address, phone number), they are not limited to local information. A citation may include any plain text reference to a business’ site, product, brand, or content. More often than not, an SEO citation is simply a weak back-link in plain text.

Do Citations Violate Intellectual Property?

An SEO citation, like most references to someone else’s ideas or content, lies within a gray area. Unlike a backlink, a citation may directly quote pieces of a business or person’s intellectual property without much accreditation. For example, snippets of music, video, written content, and images can be used as a citation as long as the larger piece of content in which the citation is included is original content. Youtube videos are great examples of SEO citations as no intellectual property is violated because embedded Youtube videos always link back to the original source. Here’s general rule of thumb for preventing the crossing of intellectual property boundaries: as long as the overall content is original, your SEO citation should be in the clear.

Has Your Business been Cited?

It’s important to keep track of all of your local SEO citations, but it’s also important to check on the citations of competitors. How can one find out if a website or business has been cited? Simply type the business name inside quotation marks into Google, along with the site name. Excluding the business’s original website, count the top five to ten results where the business’s name, address, phone number or other SEO citation content is located. Established websites can have hundreds of citations listed from each URL, so make a note of exactly where every citation is located.

Resources

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https://searchengineland.com/local-experts-say-relevance-citations-important-authority-216537

https://www.thehoth.com/local-seo-tool/

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/citation-building-customers-find-local-businesses/166649/