New Local Search Results Appearance/Rankings?
-
Hi everybody!
My team and I are all noticing a new layout for local search results. We just noticed it today. Mobile and desktop results appear to be affected. Specifically, we are looking at searches like "event spaces in Richmond" and "restaurants in Raleigh" as 2 examples. The listings appear differently in the SERPs, and the top results really are not relevant to the search queries.
Is anybody noticing anything similar, or does anyone have any insight into whether this is something Google is testing or if it's here to stay? Also, any advice for overcoming rankings drops as a result of these changes?
Thanks in advance!
-
Hi Rachel,
So glad I was able to identify this for you. It's a few weeks old now, so you should be able to find a ton of articles about it. Mike Blumenthal tends to offer some of the best insight on this topic, so check out his blog. You might looks this up on Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum as well. Hope this helps!
-
Yes, that's what we are seeing! These are the first couple of queries in which we are noticing this sort of search result.
-
Hi Rachel,
From the search queries you are making, I am taking a guess that you are referring to the new Hamburger-pak, or whatever folks want to call this
Please, feel free to share a screenshot, but my best guess is that this is what you are talking about:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/11/16/some-thoughts-on-the-new-pak-results-from-google/
Yea or nay?
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
-
3 Main Local Ranking Factors
In the Moz article titled Should You Pay for Local Listings Management? by Miriam Ellis, she makes this statement: "Prominence, proximity, and distance are the three types of factors Google tells us it takes into account when ranking local businesses. " I always thought that classic on- and off-page SEO was one of those three factors. What puzzles me about Miriam's statement is this: What's the difference between distance and proximity? Aren't they the same thing?
Local Listings | | btreloar3 -
How to Have Multiple Listings appear on Google maps
Hi my client has two locations for his restaurants: Me Gusta Tacos He wants to have both his locations show up in the map pack, which they currently do when you type in Restaurants, Dinner, food near me etc... However, when you google Me Gusta Tacos the Google listing shows up on the right for one of his locations, but there isn't a Map Pack for his two locations. I wasn't sure if a map pack only shows up when there are 3 or more locations, for instance, a chipotle which I added an image below to compare too. HGOgln5 Jgdoi4Y
Local Listings | | Sociable_Bistro0 -
URL Redirects - New Site Updates
We recently switched to a new site and I realized that our developer changed our locations page from /locations to /location. Our developer set the redirects correctly, so we most of the "juice" should still transfer fine. Even though most of the link strength should transfer to the new site, the language is misleading and according to MOZBar, the previously established links to /locations do not show up. The best option in my mind is to have the developer switch back to /locations and redirect /location. Do you feel this is the best option as well and is there anything I should be cautious about when doing this?
Local Listings | | Dions0 -
How Should We Handle Citations for a New Building?
One of the companies I work with has purchased a business complex they plan to move their offices into. The current tenant is fairly reputable in the community, but ran into some financial issues, hence the sale. For easy, I'll refer to this place as the Simmons Center. So, currently, the Simmons Center has a Yelp!, GMB and other pages devoted to what it offers (mostly restaurants and small shops) but the new company will be turning the location into a large corporate campus. We'd like to bring naming conventions in line with the new center title and remove (where applicable) citations for the Simmons Center. What would be our best way to go about doing this? I'm thinking our best option is to: 1) claim current listings, where applicable, 2) mark the Simmons Center as closed, 3) Create new listings for the new name at the same address, 4) Use Moz Local and Whitespark to help clean up citations where needed. Is this the best approach for this type of situation?
Local Listings | | AtlasGlobal0 -
Ranking for a service website that offers to a large geographic region. Micro sites, one site, google ads, etc?
Hi there I currently have a client that has a service that offers to a wide metropolitan geographic region. Currently we offer location detection when they hit the site. I'm curious what the best method going forward would be. This client is coming from a PPC initially but I've sold them on a longer term goal with organic SEO (local) . So my question is what is the best method for ground up web creation when offering a service that services multiple areas within the same metropolitan region? Bonus questions anyone using Flat CMS's?
Local Listings | | swagseo1 -
Local SEO business name issue due to aggregator
So I work for a college and we have multiple locations. My tactic has been always to keep the name the same for all of them (no city name), and then change the address and phone number for each. But there is 1000s of college listings websites out there that aggregate college and school data from the same source: the US government. Now the way that they have most, if not all, multi-location colleges listed is: "college name-city name". I can see the value in that, but I guess I'm just wondering what to do since it obviously can't be changed. Should I revert all of our listings as "college name-city name" to match the 1000s of listings that have it that way? I've been under the impression that I should leave the city/town name out of the name, but I'm just wondering what you think best practices would be? Thanks
Local Listings | | TomBinga1125
Tom0 -
Local Search and Schema.org - Do I need to tag up the "same as" Property to all my citations to help with local rankings?
Hi All, We have implemented Schema.og on our website and this also includes the local business schema for all of our branches.However I've read an article (see below ) which says we should also be doing "same as " property and linking this to ALL of our citations such as google plus page , yelp , bing places, city search etc etc as this will help with citations. I am wondering if anyone has done this ? - And if so , has this helped with local rankings etc - I don't really want to invest the extra costs to get this done if I can't find anywhere that says its made a difference - The article from whitespark - says - "when you create new citations for your business (or for your client’s), it’s a waiting game hoping that Google and the other search engines will find your new citations quickly and make the connection between those listings, the business, and the website. The “sameAs” property can help make that process much quicker _and _easier. Schema.org explains that the “sameAs” property is used along with the “URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's [or business’] identity.” By using the “sameAs” property in your NAP schema markup, you can tell search engines that the business you’ve marked up is the same one found at a certain citation URL Of course, Google+ isn’t the only important citation source. There’s also Bing Places, Facebook, Yelp, Citysearch and a few others. The nice thing about many schema.org properties is that you can use them multiple times in your markup." I am wondering what peoples thoughts were and whether they has implemented this and if so , did it help ? thanks Pete | [sameAs](http://schema.org/sameAs) | URL | URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity. E.g. the URL of the item's Wikipedia page, Freebase page, or official website. |
Local Listings | | PeteC121 -
Local Search - Multiple Locations, do i link the home page or the inner page?
Hello, For a business with multiple locations that has a web url built for each location such as: Website.com/miami Website.com/los-angeles For local search (Google+, Yelp, etc), is it best to link the local search pages to the specific page of that location? Or is the homepage sufficient enough? I ask that because it is ALREADY touch getting NATURAL links to a location page, so would local search do me good by linking to the exact page of the location?
Local Listings | | Shawn1241