Google Places rankings go away, but organic rankings stay the same / get better?
-
Hello,
I hope you all can help me out here with the information I could provide. Anyways, the past number of months I have had 1 of our clients rank extremely high organically and on Google places. For example: My client is a law firm so if you search “CLIENTS-TOWN Attorney” they would come up organically on the first page and if you were in that town and search “CLIENTS-TOWN Attorney” or even just “Attorney” they would also come up in the Google Places list. Now for some reason starting a week ago I noticed they have completely disappeared from Google Places. No changes have been done to their site and everything is the same as it was. Their organic searches are the same if not better than before. Do you guys have any clue as to why this happened and how I could possibly turn this around?
Thanks for your help in advance!
-
Hi Ben,
It's still in Beta, but I know Michael and I think it looks pretty good, from my brief glance. Michael Borgelt is a really smart fellow. You're very welcome!
-
Thanks for sharing the tool Miriam! How'd you come across it?
-
Hi WhiteHat12,
I did actually hear rumors that there was some sort of shakeup last Thursday or Friday, but do not have documentation of this to share with you.
When you state Google Places, do you mean +? Have you recently merged your client's Place Page with a + profile? Here is a list of recent issues after merging:
You might also like to try out this new analysis tool, just launched by Michael Borgelt. I've not had a chance to check it out yet, but it looks like it could be helpful in trying to assess problems:
http://www.51blocks.com/online-marketing-tools/free-local-analysis/
Without actually seeing the listing and investigating the account, it isn't possible to tell if there is a bug or penalty involved, or if the client has been surpassed by the actions of his competitors or if something else is going on. You may need to engage a Local SEO to consult with the client, because these issues typically take some hours to assess, due the large number of factors that can contribute to ranking changes. Hopefully, the 2 resources above will at least get you started in diagnosis.
Good luck!
-
The traffic has not really changed in any way. The main
reason this is important for us is because this client in particular is
obsessed with Google Places, and wants to see a strong ranking. They ranked for
every single lawyer term before, now they rank for none of them. Any idea of
the cause of this? -
The past couple of days there as been some flux industry wide. http://mozcast.com/
- How much traffic are you loosing not having Google the places listing rank?
- Are your increased organic rankings going to get you the same, or more traffic?
If you can have something better with this new change with little work, spend your time on that.
-
something could have went wrong with your places listing make sure everything is right than search your term and click on the map for certain keyword and check and see what page you are on u might have just got bumped out of the top 7 if you find yourself in the first 2 pages just build citations to get yourself back up in top 7
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Panda 4.2 Is Here
Most of you guys probably already know - but Google Panda 4.2 has began. I would love to keep an open discussion regarding anyone who was affected by the last Panda update along with changes for the good/bad during this new roll out in addition to what vertical you are in. PANDA TIME! Your web therapist, Chenzo
Search Behavior | | Chenzo1 -
Rankings like this mean what?
I have just redirected our old domain to our new domain using a sitewide 301 redirect. That was on Dec 6. Since none of the pages are showing in the serps unless you search specifically for a paragraph in quotes. But I am also very concerned because scraper sites are coming up before my site. Here are a few examples: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS398US398&biw=1223&bih=799&sclient=psy-ab&q="The+decision+to+choose+between+duplication+and+replication+depends+upon+the+circumstances+of+each+individual+project.+Since+the+creation+processes+for+replication+and+duplication+are+so+different%2C+the+final+products+are+also+very+different."&btnG=&pbx=1 and here is one I just took off the site and put somewhere else: https://www.google.com/search?q="Blu-Ray+players+have+really+come+in+to+their+own+in+the+past+few+years.+Blu-Ray+technology+provides+the+best+sound+and+picture+quality+of+any+media+format+on+the+market.+In+spite+of+the+great+leap+forward+that+Blu-Ray+represents,+there+are+still+a+good+number+of+people+who+haven’t+made+the+transition+from+traditional+DVD+players+to+the+Blu-Ray+format."&hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS398US398&ei=Gk7nUN2oMYrA8AT74IEo&start=10&sa=N&filter=0&biw=1223&bih=799 and yet another: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-Address&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&sclient=psy-ab&q="At+the+Windows+8+BUILD+conference+we+learned+that+Windows+8+will+allow+you+to+mount+ISO+and+VHD+files+natively.+++So+no+longer+is+there+a+need+for+a+3rd+party+ISO+file+software+such+as+Daemon+Tools+however+if+you+have+copy+protected+DVD+or+games+you+will+still"&btnG=&pbx=1 Notice the pattern, all of the results have my site (the originator of the content) at the bottom. I am very concerned with this as I'm sure this means Penalty up the ..... something. What is my best move at this point? Is there any chance of getting out of this? Just be thankful you are not in this position, it sucks. But I'm still positive I can do something with this site. Thanks Rob
Search Behavior | | robdawg0 -
Does Page Load Time Affect SEO Rankings?
I was curious about how much page load times affect rankings. Here's what I did: I put together a lot of interactive media on specific landing pages Time-on-Page from organic visitors went from 50 seconds to average of 34 minutes Bounce Rate decreased by 20% Page Load time increased from 1 second to 6 seconds and at peak times to 8 seconds (on 56KB test) In the meantime the page was re-indexed and re-cached My question is three-fold: Would the time on page give higher rankings for keyword Would decreased bounce rate enhance rankings? Would the page load time decrease rankings? Did anyone do a similar test? What were the results?
Search Behavior | | HMCOE0 -
Surge in Yahoo! organic traffic?
Recently a domain I manage shot up in rankings for many industry related keywords in Yahoo! It only lasted for two days, but durring that time we saw about 300% increase in organic traffic. Durring that time we were spending a lot of money in paid ads. Can anyone explain the sudden surge in Yahoo! organic traffic and rankings? Could there have been traffic from our paid ads that tracked to organic search? We use Google analytics and an in-house tracking system that both showed the same trends.
Search Behavior | | SEOBodybuilder0 -
Recovering from a Hack: How long until Google reindexes changes?
In a previous post I made, I was able to determine that one of my sites; http://pokeronamac.com/ was hacked and was feeding spam perscription drug content to search engines, then redirecting to another site when clicked on Google. I then contacted my web host, and, after they did a scan of our files, they determined that something within the wp-includes directory was compromised and malicious. They removed the file, though they weren't able to determine the source of the attack, or how they god in (should we be scared?). Anyway, its been several days now ~5 and if I do a site search the spam pages still show up, but the redirect is no longer working. At this point, I am at a standstill, because i'm loosing traffic on my site by about 90%, and google hasn't sent us any warnings of malaware or the like. I know I was recommended against this before, but should I attempt to submit a reconsideration request, or should I just wait it out? Thanks for your help, Zach
Search Behavior | | Zachary_Russell0 -
Interesting keyword ranking issue
Hello Everybody, Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Without further ado, I'll jump straight to it: http://www.dataclinic.co.uk is the web site of a UK based data recovery company. Historically the site has always ranked well for popular data recovery keywords in the UK, with page 1 rankings for most things data recovery related. However, lately things seem to have changed for our most important phrase "data recovery". We noticed several months ago that Google had started to favour the page http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery.htm instead of http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/ when a search for "data recovery" (and similar) was performed. This didn't concern us that much as our rankings remained good. However now, neither of these pages seems to be ranking well when a search for "data recovery" is performed (I gave up at Page 5 - who looks past there when searching?). I would appreciate your input on this please - especially about the following points: 1. Why have these two pages now seemingly disappeared from SERPS when a search for "data recovery" is performed ? 2. Why has Google chosen http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery.htm rather than http://www.dataclinic.co.uk ? 3. Is this just something to do with UK results ? 4. Other sites I would expect NOT to see in the top results have started appearing - despite their link profiles etc remaining poor - perhaps Google is doing a bit of reorganisation with SERPS related to data recovery at the moment ? 5. And perhaps, most importantly - do you think we need to do anything about our current lack of visibility ?? As I mentioned, we've always ranked well, so these results are puzzling... Should search results revert "back to normal" in a day or so, or am I missing something and need to take action ?? Thanks for any input on this - we would be very grateful indeed for you help ! Kind Regards, Sue
Search Behavior | | 3Amigos0 -
Google button +1 ( SEO point-of-view )
Hello Folks, First of all, I want to start by: this is a "discussion" topic, which theres no right or wrong answer. I would love to hear from everyone your toughts about the GOOGLE +1 BUTTON , for the SEO point-of-view indeed. I assume that I did not add it to my websites yet, theres some reasons why. You guys added it? How is your audience behaviors against the button, they often click on it? It changed anything in your ranks, after they clicked on it? Thanks in advance.
Search Behavior | | augustos0 -
How to get more page impressions?
I'm wondering about one of our web-projects. There's a lot of good interesting content but the statistics of page impressions don't make me very happy. Each user is visiting just 1,5 sites per visit. That's really not much. We have other (similar) projects where this problem does not exist, where user are visiting a lot more sites per visit. I have no idea what could be the reason for it. Do you know / use some tricks to get more page impressions? Thank you, Sally
Search Behavior | | SallyO0