Google Local Algorithm Changes?
-
I was wondering if you have heard about any Google Local algorithm changes. We have about 200 franchise locations. Some of our locations have dropped significantly over the past few weeks. Locations that were showing up in the 1-3 positions are now no longer showing on the first page. This is for very relevant phrases for our main line of business (which is also in our business name)... ‘Phrase, CITY NAME’. These locations have plenty of positive Google reviews. We would typically rank well for a phrase like that based on our relevance.
I did some brainstorming. Do you think any of these could have any impact?
- Google is all about things looking and feeling natural including link building, etc. We have used Yext which made a lot of changes across the web to fix addresses, etc. Do you think Google may be seeing this as unnatural? Too many changes at to many sites in to short a period of time?
- Along those same lines, do you think Google may be penalizing some of our franchise pages for being to ‘perfect’? It would be ‘natural’ for addresses to have some difference across the web and a bit unnatural to have them all match so perfectly.
- I know that Google has always stated the business name should be listed in Google Local the way it is listed to the general public. Things such as “Business Name Boston” should be listed as “Business Name”. Each of our franchise locations is named in house to reflect their geo location..... "Business Name Boston", "Business Name St. Louis". Many of our competitors also use the practice of attaching geo terms as well. Do you think we may be getting hit with a penalty now even though we have listed things on Google with the Geo term for years.... and is how WE refer to each location? Is it possible that by working with Yext, we drew attention to this practice? Should we remove our local listings geo term on Google Local? How about across the web?
- We are in a business that does not require customers to come to our location. Some of our locations have not suppressed the address in their local listings while others have. Many of our competitors have not. Do you think this could play into it?
- Some of our locations that are not showing in Local have good organic results. Have you heard anything about Google dropping Local if they show in organic?
- I know Google has been looking at social media more and more and I believe they will continue to do so. If our local pages have no social presence, could this adversely affect things? (I think this is probably not the case…. but wanted to throw it out there)
- I have noticed that in some cases where Local has dropped, we have multiple offices in that metro area. Is it possible that this could affect things?
- Have you heard of any Local algorithm changes? I know they are releasing a new dashboard sporadically, could this be in conjunction with a larger Local algorithm change?
- Our CMS tool does not allow us to change Title/Meta per page (I know... terrible!!). So every page has the same title and same meta description. (We are changing our CMS system! Can't wait!). Could this play into it?
Thanks for any feedback!
-
I'll try answer your questions in the order you had them
- I don't think this would be a problem. It's only natural that people would set themselves to the task of fixing all of their location data at one time.
- Again, I don't think this is a problem. There are people out there who are naturally this detail oriented, and would just naturally have perfect listings.
- This could be a problem. Is your legal business name "Business Name Location?" If it is, then you shouldn't have to worry about it, but if you are trying to stuff a keyword in there you do have a problem.
- As long as you set your places profile to show that you do business at the their location you are ok with this one.
- From my experience they will just slap the local on top of my normal organic listing. The only time this doesn't happen is some of my internal pages where I get both a local and universal result.
- Social Media for SEO is still in debate, but the vast majority of SEO's agree that it does have at least a small impact. That being said, I wouldn't attribute this to your problems unless all of your competitors have massive followings with tons of interaction.
- Google isn't nice enough to announce all of their changes, so the only people that would have any idea are the ones with research departments. That being said, I haven't heard of any, but I'm sure they are constantly tweaking it. The only big announcement was Matt Cutts saying that merchant quality was going to become an indicator sometime this year.
- I can feel your pain here. My company works on a lot of businesses in the same vertical, and the CMS's in this vertical create thousands of pages with the same exact title tags. My first month is usually spent indexing the site numerous times to try find all the stray Titles that need to be changed. From my experience this will have a negative impact on your search results. I'd work quickly to fix the issue.
-
here are two questions from myself regarding local that may help you a bit
G+ places/local - Company Categories and Pages question (including write-up questions)
Local Citation Help - New Business in Old Location of same type of business
While these may not fully and/or exactly answer your questions i believe you may find some valuable info from knowledgeable sources which could help you at least get on the right path until someone else(more knowledgeable than me on this topic) has time to really answer you fully.
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
-
Many meta descriptions ignored by Google
Hi all, We have recently added the meta descriptions for more than 50 pages of our website. It's been more than a week and all the pages have been indexed. But still I can see most of the pages in Google results didn't show up with recently added meta description, but the content from page like how it used to be. I wonder what's wrong with this scenario. Please guide of someone aware of this. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google Trends Graph and KW Planner Monthly Searches?
I'm trying to show people the trends of certain keywords/topics over a period of years Keyword Planner gives some actual numbers but only for 12 months. Trends will show "Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart. If at most 10% of searches for the given region and time frame were for "pizza," we'd consider this 100. This doesn't convey absolute search volume." Which I don't really understand, other than if the graph goes up it means more interest but has to do with the amount of people searching, location, etc which can get tricky? I'd like to put together a short report explaining certain topics and how interest in them has increased over the last 5+ years. I'm hoping someone else here has had some experience with this and has some advice or links with more information?
Algorithm Updates | | JoshBowers20120 -
Why is Google changing my title tags?
I have a few sites set up this way with their title tags: "Keyword rich phrase(s) | Company name" and Google is showing more and more of them like this in the SERPs - "Company name: Keyword rich phrase(s)" I don't see this happening to many other sites...am I hallucinating or what's going on here? Is this happening to anyone else? I don't see it necessarily affecting rankings, but for my sites with little brand recognition I want those keywords first. Bueller? Bueller?
Algorithm Updates | | NetvantageMarketing0 -
Webpage is ranking on google.ie / google.co.uk but not google.com?
One of our site webpage appears to be found in the first few pages on google.ie / google.co.uk but not on google.com. Is there such a thing being penalised on a specific Google domain? Traffic is healthy despite this but I want to rank well for the page in google.com. Any ideas?
Algorithm Updates | | notnem0 -
Proper Way To Submit A Reconsideration Request To Google
Hello, In previous posts, I was speaking about how we were penalized by Google for unnatural links. Basically 50,000 our of our 58,000 links were coming from 4-5 sites with the same exact anchor text and img alt tags. This obviously was causing our issues. Needless to say, I wen through the complete link profile to determine that all of the links besides this were of natrural origins. My question here is what is the accepted protocol of submitting a reinclusion request; For example, how long should it be? Should I disclose that I was in fact using paid links, and now that I removed (or at least nofollowed) them? I want to make sure that the request as good as it should so I can get our rankings up in a timely manner. Also, how long until the request is typically aknowledged? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BestOdds0 -
Question about Local / Regional SEO
Good Morning Moz Community, I have a local SEO/regional SEO question. I apologize if this question is duplicated from another area on this forum but, a query of the term Regional SEO showed no results, as did similar queries. Please preference this entire question with "Knowing what we know about the most recent changes to local search" I know what has worked in the past, my concern is Now. Working with a heavily regulated client that is regional, mostly East Coast US. They are in Financial Services and state licensing is a requirement. They are licensed in 15 states. Obviously, it would look foolish, in this day in age, to Title Tag individual pages with local modifiers and have numerous pages covering a similar topic with not much difference than localized modifiers in front of the keyword. I've never found that SE's can understand broad regional terms such as New England or Mid Atlantic or Southeast or Northeast, if someone knows different please share. Aside from an exact match search. The client does have 7 offices in various states. Perfectly matching and consistent listings in G Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local was step one and all their locations are now in those services and there are many more smaller local citation listings are in the works. We have also successfully implemented a plan to generate great reviews from actual customers, for each location, they're receiving a few a day right now. Their local places listings, where they have physical locations, are doing very well but: 1. What would the community's suggestion be on generating more targeted traffic in the 8 states where they have no physical location? 2. The client wants to begin creating smaller blogs that are highly localized to the states and major population centers that they do not have a physical location in. There is an open check book to dedicate to this effort however, I do a lot of work in this industry so I want to offer the best possible, most up to date advice, my concern is that these efforts will have two results: a. be obscured by the ”7 pack" by companies with local brick and mortar b. would detract from the equity built in their existing blog by generating content in other domains, I would prefer to continue growing the main blog. 3. As a follow up, it has been documented that Google is now using the same algorithm for local, personal and personalized, that being the case, is there any value in building links to you Places page? Can you optimize your Places page by using the same off site techniques as you would traditionally? Sorry to kill you with such a long question on a Sunday 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | dogflog1 -
Localised Hosting is Good for SEO - But How Local?
Hi SEOmoz community, A UK based client will soon be opening an office in the USA. We have advised them to create a new website specifically aimed at the US market, primarily because the way you talk to your potential customers is slightly different than here in the UK. However, this has also raised the question of hosting. Of course we'll be advising them to host their new US site in the States, however does it matter where? For example, if their office is in NYC, would it matter if their hosting was based in Dallas? I.e. does Google rank sites hosted in a US city / state higher for localised searches? Interested to hear your thoughts - thanks for your time! Mark
Algorithm Updates | | RiceMedia0 -
Google place page Images
Is there any real difference in uploading an images directly to your google places page or linking an image from another site? I have heard that you get better results if you upload a photo to photo bucket then to insider pages then post that link to your google places page. To me it just seems a bit odd to do things this way. I get that it's suppose to give you more back links however I don't think it would necessarily be relevant or useful for the user. Any thoughts??
Algorithm Updates | | christinarule0