GMB Account Fallen Off Rankings in past 24 hours
-
My map pack presence has fallen off the face of the earth over the last 24 hours. My location The Escape Game Chicago was top 3 yesterday for 'escape room chicago' and now they only show up when searching for the exact brand name.
What's weirder is I still rank #1 organically for that keyword.I have looked through the account, nothing seems to be totally amiss. Google has not notified me of any issues or penalties. I have no clue what happened.Can anyone point me in the right direction or provide some insight as to how I can recover my ranking?
-
Thank you for bringing your question to the forum, Daniel. Likely, what you will need to do is a full competitive audit (for which you can find some guidance here: https://moz.com/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit) to discover why your business is being outranked by a competitor. My glance at this here in the forum can't replace an audit, but I will take a look and jot down some notes about what I see.
1. You mention that you were previously in the 3 pack for "escape room Chicago" but on March 10, you dropped. Looking from my location on the West Coast on March 16, I see you are at position #10 in Google's local finder (the mapped results you see when you click on the 3-pack for more info). So, you haven't disappeared altogether, but you have definitely fallen at least 7 spots since you last enjoyed your 3 pack ranking. When you search from your location at the place of business, what position are you seeing yourself in today?
2. Your review count is many times greater than that of any competitor, with the exception of Fox in a Box also having over 1,000 reviews. You currently have 1,399 reviews vs. the top competitor for this search term, Escape House, which has 95. Pardon the frank question, but are you certain you haven't done anything to violate Google's review guidelines in a way that might have prejudiced them against your listing? This would include incentivizing reviews in any way for your business, having employees review your business, etc. The advantage should be to you here, in your far greater number of reviews, but when the total number of reviews is so much greater than most of the rest of the field, it's important to be sure guidelines are being adhered to.
3. Your overall star rating of 4.9 is .1 greater than Escape House's 4.8. Advantage to you.
4. Your categories are the same as your top competitor's. No difference there.
5. Your competitor has written Google posts in the past. None are showing for you. Advantage to them.
6. You are doing a much better job responding to reviews than your top competitor is. Advantage to you.
7. What is going on with your business being located next door to two other escape businesses? Do you have a relationship with Escape House or Safe House? What is the scenario here?
8. In terms of business names, the name on your street signage as seen via Google Street View does not match what you have called your business in your GMB listing. Your street sign reads: The Escape Game. Your GMB listing is titled: The Escape Game Chicago. Adding extra keywords to your listing title is considered spam. Meanwhile, Escape House does not have extra keywords in their name. Technically, because Google's algorithm is still rewarding business name spammers, the advantage in this could be to you, but on the other hand, it could be possible that your business name was reported to Google and they are docking you for this.
9. The MozCast reported a bit of heavy weather on March 9th which could have included a shakeup in your pack. Local Rank Flux also reported a "hot" day on the 9th (see https://www.localsearchforum.com/threads/sudden-gmb-ranking-drop-for-all-keywords.55923/).
So, these are some things I'm seeing at a glance. I would recommend that you follow through with a complete audit between yourself and the business ranking #1. And those questions regarding your reviews, your business name, and the geographic scenario regarding your business and the 2 competitors being next door to one another deserve a closer look. You aren't being impacted by the Possum filter, from what I can see, because you are present on the map despite your close proximity to the two other competitors, but you are in a densely competitive area, for sure.
Please, feel free to come back with answer to the questions I've asked or with further questions of your own.
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
-
optimized GMB
Hi Community, I have optimized GMB like adding keyword-rich content, asking customers to review and putting up more products. But how I can outrank others on Google Map. TBH, I think my listing is more complete and relevant than others but mine just doesn't display when searching for those terms. Please help! Thank you very much!
Local Listings | | Insightful_Media0 -
Business Split into 2 Businesses - Residential and Commercial Site - 2 different URLs and both have the same address! Can we create 2 separate Google My Business Accounts?
Business Split into 2 Businesses - Residential and Commercial Site - 2 different URLs and both have the same address! Can we create 2 separate Google My Business Accounts?
Local Listings | | 9thCO0 -
What are the best link strategies to increase rankings in Local Pack / GMB and where to find them?
As someone who manages GMB for 50 plus local US clients, I absolutely loved this article https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors#local-pack-finder-ranking-factors and found it somewhat useful. Most of the gurus are saying link building is the key, but I wish at least one of them would mention where do we find these links. Is there a reliable source for this ( based on personal experience only please ) ? A one stop shop for any local business to do quality links ? I feel like to be truly useful to a local business this piece of the puzzle is missing and I would truly appreciate anyone's help.
Local Listings | | OlegLevitas2 -
This page should be ranking but it's not even in top 50
Please help! Ive been trying to rank this page https://www.visitmanchester.com/where-to-stay/hotels It appeared on age 2 for a day and disappeared again. It's like it's being algorithmically kicked out. Can anyone see why?
Local Listings | | Andrew-SEO0 -
Strange Ranking Results
Hi Any ideas why doing a search for 'Family Portrait Photographer' from my location on the Isle Of Wight (after deleting cache/history) etc results in a load of results relating to Cardiff Wales (local serps and main listings)? I am close to cities like Southjampton & Portsmouth as well as few other all much neaer than cardiff ! All Best
Local Listings | | Dan-Lawrence
Dan0 -
A site is preforming well for 1 local term, but with a slight change to the term it dosnt rank.
Ive got a site thats currently ranking #2 in the local 7 pack listings for the search term : "garden design [city]" but is not ranking at all for "garden designer [city]" (note the "er" at the end of designer). The search traffic for these 2 terms is pretty much the same, and id like to get the site ranking for "garden designer [city]". The only thing i can think of is thats different is that in the <title>tag for the homepage of the site we have "Garden Design [City] - .....", is there any other way i can try and up the local 7 pack ranking for my site other than changing the title tag ?</p> <p>Im thinking of running a link building campaign for the phrase "garden designer [city]", but apart from that i cant think of anything else that could help up my rankings for this, any ideas ?</p></title>
Local Listings | | Sam-P0 -
Awesome ranking (place 1/2) but my CTR is damn low! Some thoughts...
Hey all, with a few projects I'm ranking really great. Having a good amount of impressions with terms that have decent search volume. Webmasters shows: "tax consultant city" Ranking 1.4 => 1056 imp => 3% CTR "seo city" Ranking 1.2 => 329 imp => 1% CTR Whats up here? Competitors are seaching a lot but not clicking? Brand issues? Can't believe that. Title is boring? German titles a are longer... So I don't have enough room to play. Should I get rid of important keywords? Maybe I don't need them to rank? Gives me room for tests. Local Box is steeling all the clicks? We are in the local listings and above. Payed Ads are steeling all the clicks? At this point we don't use AdWords because of high costs and our great organic rankings It would be great to hear your thoughts. Cheers
Local Listings | | PascalKremp
Pascal0 -
How do URL's influence Google Rankings?
Hi There, I have a new client who wishes to rank in Google UK for 'Antique Fireplaces London'. Currently they rank 49th. They do not know their logins for Google Local (where they have 40+ positive reviews). And have very mess social activity (which i am trying to sort out). The domain is around 8 years old - website has just been redone (drupal) where a lot of the former SEO errors were corrected) but they seem to be outranked by much newer websites that have much lower domain authority and less inbound links. My client also has much more recognition in online trade magazines and newspapers than most of their competitors. Would buying some additional domains with the keywords they wish to rank for help? Or will this look dodgy to google? Any other quick tips to give them a boost?
Local Listings | | skehoe0