Google Map Penalty or Odd Filter? Listing Goes Missing
-
Hello Moz.
We have a law firm client who practices criminal defense law. Historically, he has been ranked for _years _in the map pack and first page of search for a variety of phrases. This is a law firm with twice the number of reviews of the next competitor, solid back links, and open 24 hours a day.
Over the past 30 days, he now appears inconsistently in the map packs. Sometimes he is in the C slot and sometimes he does not appear at all. Most of the time he is not listed for specific legal phrases for DUI, DWI and criminal defense.
When he is not listed in the A, B, or C slot, then he is actually gone completely. You click on More Places and his listing for the map is just completely gone. You can scroll down from listing 1 through 20+ and not find his firm in the Map listings. You would think he would just be further down on the list at 5 - 10. But it is just missing.
However, when you change the filters for either rating or reviews, he suddenly will appear. In fact, he will be near the top of the list, but only on filtering. You can even clear the filter and he stays listed in typically the C slot too. However, if you refresh the page, he is gone again.
My question is simple: Do you think there is some type of data issue or penalty in place? Or is this just how the filters work - suddenly showing a list that should appear in the main area.
PS: If I am not clear on the above, I can send video evidence of this oddity.
-
Hi Pete,
Glad I was able to help you identify Possum.
-
Agree, it is most likely the filter Possum update. They are absent on More Results, but appear on filter or zoom. Thanks!
-
Hi Pete,
Thank you for the further details. Given that your client shares the same building with other attorneys, your scenario hints at the possibility that what you are experiencing is the effect of Google's Possum update, which influences the local finder results for businesses in the same category/same building. Joy Hawkins does a good job of describing this phenomenon in the #2 point in her article at Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900
If your business appears absent from the map at the automatic zoom level, but then appears in the results if you zoom in on the map, chances are strong it's Possum. As you can't share the identity of the client, please try that experiment and see if it fits. Possum was released in September 2016 and was believed to impact well over half of the Local SERPs.
-
Lawyer shares a small office building with 40 other businesses. Two other businesses on same floor are also criminal defense firms. This is not a Regis style office suite, rather a regular office building with many tenants. Each has its own office number.
Firm only has one Google My Business.
Can't share right now. Just trying to see if anyone else has experiences a similar filter where the listing won't appear at all on maps, but on ratings/hours filter it will appear in a high slot. At first glance, it appears some penalty is in place. Maybe if we can't get anywhere we will share the domain.
-
Hi Pete,
Quick questions:
-
Does the lawyer share a building with any other lawyers?
-
Does the legal practice have a Google My Business listing for the business + listings for multiple attorneys at the firm?
-
Is it possible to share the name of the business with our community? It's okay if you can't, but looking at a live example would certainly be helpful in taking a stab at identifying what is going on.
Looking forward to your replies!
-
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
-
Bingplaces.com wanting access to google account
Hello, we have a google my business account. On bingplaces.com it is saying they would like access to our google account. Is that normal for bing to share access with the google my business account? Thanks.
Local Listings | | MeritInsuranceGroup0 -
Google Suspended My business listing
hi there, Google has Suspended By Google Business Listing Google has suspended your page due to quality issues. there is No spam Things in My Business, i have Requested Google, But It has not made active Since 10 Days, Is there any way to make My listing Publish on Google please Guide me to which steps Need take Thnx
Local Listings | | innovative.rohit0 -
Evidence that high organic rankings impact positioning in the Google local pack?
I'm looking for articles/evidence that if you have a high ranking organic listing that it will improve your chances of being in the local pack. I came across this about a year ago, but I have had trouble finding articles to support this. Does anybody know of any recent articles and/or studies that show a correlation of high organic listings and local pack visibility? Thanks!
Local Listings | | BigChad20 -
Brand listed as plumber, can we still rank for other markets?
We have a lead generation website in the Netherlands in the plumber business. The last two years we were focussing on local SEO, and gain some rankings on keywords like 'plumber amsterdam'. We also connected google my local business in different city's, so we rank in both the citations as in maps. Now we want to get some rankings with the lead generation brand on other keywords. Keywords for other markets like 'handyman' 'roofer' etc. Google remembers what kind of business we are, since we are listed as plumbing company. My question is, can we still go for those other markets with the brand? The markets/ keywords are related and all in the home improvement segment. So for example, example.com/plumber example.com/roofer etc. The other option is to target those specific markets with other brands/ domains.
Local Listings | | remkoallertz0 -
NAP question and Google local.
Hello, My client has successfully grown one of their event venues locally (lets call it venue A) and on the back of that bought two more venues (B & C). Then created an umbrella company to manage all three. He now wants to market the umbrella company and so redirected the original successful venue domain (A) to the new umbrella company domain. The umbrella company is located at the same address as the original venue A. So it shares the same address, phone number, website as venue A but a different name. All this done before me. He has a Google local page for the original venue - venue A- and changed the domain on it to the new one. He also has Google local pages for the other two venue locations. But doesn't have a Google local page for the umbrella company. Now he finds rankings are down. Looking around I can see that his citations are all based on the original successful venue name A - but he has changed the website URL on many of the citations to the new domain.So a bit of a mess as we have a mixture of addresses, same phone number for all 4 , different business names for all 4, same website for all 4. If all the venues plus the umbrella company are in the same city, but have different names and addresses but the same phone number (for bookings) and web address, are they allowed a Google local page each? I suggest just having a Google local page for the umbrella company and remove the others as they are not actually separate businesses although they do have different addresses. But unsure if this is correct or necessary. Not sure how to progress with this one and any help appreciated?
Local Listings | | AL123al0 -
Local Directories: What are the best practices for manually updating over 500 listings?
We are currently using an aggregator for a client, but we will be manually updating 5 different local directories that are not included in the distribution for over 500 locations. I am wondering if there are any local experts that have a set of best practices/processes for this type of scenario?
Local Listings | | PureVisibility0 -
How to make same places listings show up for variations of brand term?
My client's brand name is a similar case to "Dolce & Gabbana" in terms of two names with an ampersand in between. There is also a high number of searches for a spelled out 'and' in between, i.e. "Dolce and Gabbana" using this example. In fact, if you perform a search for both variations, you will notice that only the first version with the "&" shows a places listing in the results. The same is happening when people search for my client. Is there a way to ensure that different variations of my clients' brand searches display with places listings in SERPs? Thanks.
Local Listings | | DinaDiligent0 -
A customer made a duplicate google plus page, now what?
A customer of mine went to a business conference about a year ago and one of the speakers told them of the importance of having an optimized google plus page. Instead of talking to me about it, they went ahead and created a brand new page and began posting content and reviews to it. I've contacted google and they've told me they deleted the first page, but it still always shows up in the local search results even though the new page has much more content on it. Has anyone dealt with a similar situation that could help me? I have them ranking #2 organic, but barely showing up local...
Local Listings | | jag10251