New google maps listing was showing & now is not
-
Here is a brief description of what I am doing and what happened.
I recently acquired a new client who had an unclaimed google business listing. We claimed the listing and within 2 days it was showing up for its main search term on Google. Almost immediately my client was receiving new calls from the listing. Within a week the listing no longer shows up with the other listings on the home page but does show up when searching on google maps.
Does anyone have a lot of experience with Google+ & business listings? If yes, what are some of the most common reasons listings might be removed, shuffled around, increased or decreased in ranking, etc.
Sincerely,
Garret
-
Hi Garret,
I have some questions and then some thoughts for you:
Where was the listing ranking before you claimed it (what letter)?
Where did it rank after you claimed it (what letter)?
When you say it is showing up in Google Maps, what position does it have in the list view?
Is there any chance that claiming the listing might have drawn Google's attention to the accidental existence of you having more than 1 listing in existence for this business? Have you searched for duplicates?
How good is the client's organic authority?
Did you notice a general ranking shift at this time for any of the client's competitors? Could Google have coincidentally been reordering results at the time you claimed the listing or has everybody else in the pack stayed in about the same position?
Some ideas: read through this article to check off potential issues with ranking failures:
http://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures
The other thing I'm thinking of hearkens back to my early days in Local SEO. It seems to me that I remember instances in which a newly claimed listing would appear high in the packs for a brief period of time, then fall off to a much lower position and then would have to climb back up the rankings based on effort/strength. I haven't heard this phenomenon being mentioned in many years, but I wonder if it might still exist here and there.
I'd highly advise looking into the duplicate listing possibility and do go through the article I've linked to:)
-
Hi,
Without knowing the particulars of your listing, I'll attempt to answer your questions:
"(1) what are some of the most common reasons listings might be removed,
(2) shuffled around,
(3) increased or decreased in ranking, etc."
(1) Removal could be due to spamming the description (keyword stuffing), though lately I have seen highly over optimized listings that are not being removed. In the past, a listing could be removed if the business owner attempted to keyword stuff the business name, but again this seems to be allowed now (it's referred to as a "descriptor."). Is it possible they have duplicate listings? That could be causing a removal.
(2), (3) --> I see the shuffling around with my clients all the time. This is influenced by the keyword, where the search is being conducted (meaning where Google thinks you are when conducting the keyword search), and other factors that I do not think Google discloses. I have noticed that at different times of the day my clients appear higher or lower in the local rankings. Perhaps Google shuffles around the results to see what gets better click-through-rates (and in theory creating a better user experience.)
Increase/decrease in rankings can be influenced by the user's location. Then again, what kind of increase/decrease are you talking about? A few spots? Totally common. 20 spots? Tough to say.
You mentioned that the listing is not in the local pack, but appears when you click on "Map results for [Insert Keyword]." I have seen that too, but cannot tell you why that happens. There has been speculation that it has to do with either onsite optimization or GMB over-optimization, but I don't know if anyone outside of Google really knows. What I can tell you is that this happened to one of my clients. His listing would disappear from the local pack, but be #3 in the map results. Within a few weeks this stopped happening, and now his listing is consistently in the local pack.
If you would like, PM the listing in question and I'll take a look. Good luck.
-
Monica when he said the client is receiving calls this means that the listing was actually there and if those calls are stop this means that the listing isn’t there anymore…. (This is how it logically should be).
When you are saying the listing appears when you go to Google Maps but not in the main results I assume that other competitors will have some edge may be better listing optimization against the desired keywords, better reviews, better rating them yours and more.
My recommendation is to do the audit and figure out where the problem is and go from there accordingly.
Hope this helps!
-
Are you signed into Google when doing these searches? That is a huge factor in local rankings. Can you track the SERP of the map listing in any tool?
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
-
New site links?
Hi all, Don't know whether this is new, or whether I'm very unobservant and just noticed, but certain results in the SERPs have started listing site links, more akin to Ads. So, if you google 'Department Stores London', you'll see the top listing 'Visit London' has four sitelinks underneath for Selfridges, Debenhams, Harrods and Fenwick. Is this markup? My website has sitelinks if you search for us, but if we appear in a generic list (like this search), then they disappear. Any ideas? Cheers, Rhys
Local Listings | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
I have 2 locations and 6+ Google Business pages... How can I combine the duplicates without losing maps rankings?
I have 2 locations and 6+ different Google Business pages due to a company merger and automatic page creation. Some of the GMB even pages rank in maps above the ones we use for certain terms and most bring traffic to my site, but I know the dupes are hurting our maps rankings. Is there a way I can consolidate these pages by combining them? Or am I better off just biting the bullet and deleting the pages I don't want to use?
Local Listings | | formandfunctionagency0 -
Local Help! Google+ Accounts for New Brand & Service Sites
Hi Mozzers! I have a lot of knowledge in local search, G+ page setup/optimization, etc, etc... However, I'm about to begin a business based around "home services". The brand will be ABC Home Services as the umbrella. Then under it will be the individual services like "ABC Carpet Cleaning" "ABC Roofing", etc... Each service will have it's own website for optimization purposes and local search authority building as well as the services will be developed over the course of a couple years ie: carpet cleaning would go up 1st, then the next service and so on... I have purchased all of the domains I want for the services to focus on. What do you recommend I do in terms of setting up Gmail accounts/G+ accounts? Individual service related Gmail accounts and have a main "ABC Home Services" Google account and then add in the service G+ pages over time? I'm open to any questions, but trying to make this the most efficient for me and my team and also the best if can be for local optimization goals and criteria. Thank you! - Patrick
Local Listings | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Google Map Disappeared
We had a client call and report that the information in the right-hand map of the SERp for their company name was presenting inaccurate information. I immediately reported the issue through Google and two days later it was fixed and the information was appearing correctly! The following week, we created a Google My Business page for the same client to help boost their presence. Now, when typing in the same general query as we did for the previous-mentioned work, the map is not showing up at all! The map does appear when I type the company name with city and state, but not only the company name as before. The listing has been verified with the Google postcard code, etc. Any insight or work arounds on this would be immensely appreciated!!
Local Listings | | BehrDesign0 -
How to track google business traffic as organic into google analytics?
Hi mozzers, After noticing that all Google business(known in the past as google places) traffic gets recorded into direct traffic I would like to get this into organic traffic instead. What is the best method to do so? I found this great post http://moz.com/blog/tracking-traffic-from-google-places-in-google-analytics by Rebecca Lehmann but was written in 2011. Are these method the only one available to track this traffic or is there a new method we could try that would track all this traffic into organic search? Thanks for letting me know!
Local Listings | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Local listing ranking higher than domain name
Hi everyone,I was wondering why on my ranking report there is a fluctuation between the local listing page and the domain name page. Is it a way to always get the domain name ranking higher than the local listing?Thanks for your support,RM
Local Listings | | skrauss0 -
Why is my location info on google+ correct in one state, but wrong in another?
One search was performed from Oklahoma, and one from California where the business is located. The Google maps data is wrong in CA, but correct in OK. The wrong info is the old business name that closed two years ago. I've written Google twice asking them to remove it from Google Maps, but they write back and say no. http://d.pr/i/KbIN http://d.pr/i/Gce9 Thanks for any input, I appreciate it.
Local Listings | | marshalllj0 -
Google Places category language issue
Hi there! I've recently added a new listing in our Google Places for Business account. When adding the basic info initially, the category suggestions where in English, so I just picked one. We are based in The Netherlands however, so I'd like to use the Dutch categories. When I edit our existing listing, the category suggestions are Dutch. When I edit our new listing, suggestions keep showing in English. Does anyone know how I can change this? I tried to switch language settings in my Google account, but it seems like the categories are just stuck on a certain language once the listing is set up? Thanks for your help!
Local Listings | | RBO0