Google Places......
-
Hi guys,
Anyone come across a problem with Google places and it impacting organic search results?
I have a client the was ranking top 3 on Google for all local keywords (letting agent). They have set up Google Places and now appear with a nice Google places ad but the organic position has now disappeared....Gone down to page 8 and nothing.
Any ideas?
Ta
-
We encountered a similar issue recently. We had two pages ranking on Google's front page (lets call them page A and page B). Page A was in the local bucket...page B was below the local bucket in the top 10. We updated our Google Places page to point to the URL of page B. Google moved page B into the local bucket and dropped page A altogether. However, page B did no better in the local bucket than page A.
We have since reversed this decision.
-
Hey Lawrence,
It may not be a problem at all, at least not by design. Google began merging organic information with Google Places a while back. If you notice that the title of the Place page on the results page is the same as that of your website page that ranked, this happened.
And when that happens, short of a few cases I have right now it always takes place of the organic listing. Meaning that you only get the one.
In some cases this is ok, as the Google Places page is taking the top spot of the results page. I've also noticed an increased conversion rate depending on the service.
-
Lawrence,
First I would ask: where are they ranking in Places - page one, number 3, etc.? (The change may not be negative, but need more info.) Has traffic, calls, leads, etc. changed? On the Places ad, did you change anything re categories, address, phone, etc.? Was the organic listing around a different area, etc.?
More info really is needed to dissect this: urls, target area, etc.
If you can supply those you will get more assistance as there are several really good local SEO pros on moz.
Best
Edit: Lawrence, I wanted to find some substantiation before I said this, but there is a lot of wait attached to a verified listing: From Google Places for Business:
With individual listings, once the listing is verified, your information will be trusted more than conflicting information from any other sources. I would really look at the site and see if anything is conflicting with what you have in Places. I am assuming the Places accurately links to the site url.
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
-
Google AMP (accelerated mobile pages), can it be used for non-Google news and Ecommerce Websites?
Mozzers, I've been doing a lot of research on Google's new Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) https://moz.com/blog/accelerated-mobile-pages-whiteboard-friday. From what I'm seeing, these AMP version websites are only for Google News-worthy websites such as New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and the BuzzFeeds of the world. But what about Ecommerce websites like Ebay or Amazon? Will AMP versions of "scotch tape" via OfficeDepot work in the SERP's on non-Google News cards?
Algorithm Updates | | Shawn1240 -
Why is Google.co.uk showing so many US retailers on search queries?
Over the last couple of years Google seems to be showing more and more irrelevant search results in the field I am based in (dietary supplements) with searches for products coming back with results which highlight US vendors. Given I am in google.co.uk and actually logged in as well, why is Google so far off with their results lately?
Algorithm Updates | | predatornutrition0 -
Have you seen what happens when you Google Academy Awards 2014?
Hi All... Just wondering if it is a new feature on Google's side (knowledge Graph)? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BeytzNet0 -
Can Google penalize a country keyword
Hello again guys Thank you for your previous help with www.kids-academy.co.uk - we are slowly getting there! I wanted to ask something I cannot seem to find an answer to, can Google penalize you by country? By this I mean; Search term
Algorithm Updates | | LeanneSEO
Nursery franchise UAE Page 1
Nursery franchise UK Nowhere to be found! The page in question (well a section of the site) has been optimised for UK, however, as they do have a sister site in the UAE, it mentions those areas too. The pages I have been working on are now ranking reasonably well to say there is a long way to go, but for long tailed keywords NOT including anything to do with the UK. There are no naughty backlinks with the anchor text to do with the UK, the server is hosted in the UK, it is a .co.uk URL (no geotagging but I would like to know if this is of any use with this type of URL, everything says no, but it cant harm can it?) - is it possible Google due to bad practices in the past have slapped a penalty on the specific keyword area? Not something I have come across previously but I am scratching my head over here! Time for a brew break 😄 Thanks in advance guys! Leanne1 -
How to keep damage low on Google after the change of URL's
Hi Peeps, Hope someone can shed a light on this and show a guidance if possible. We are going to move our sites to shopify and shopify's URL's cannot be customized to match exactly like our current URLs. What steps do I need to take so google knows the URL's are changed. Domain will be the same. Thank you in advanced.
Algorithm Updates | | cemalcebi0 -
Page details in Google Search
I noticed this morning a drop in the SERPs for a couple of my main keywords. And even though this is a little annoying the more pressing matter is that Google is not displaying the meta title I have specified for the majority of my sites pages, despite one being specified and knowing my site has them in place. Could this sudden change to not using my specified title be the cause of the drop, and why would they be being displayed by Google in the first place, when they are there to be used. The title currently being displayed inthe SERPs is not anything that has been specified in the past or from the previous latest crawl etc. Any insight would be appreciated. Tim
Algorithm Updates | | TimHolmes0 -
How often do people use Google Product Search
I was was reading Tom Critchlow's excellent blog on how to rank well for Google Product Search. I'm trying to find out if there are stats on how often people use this feature in Google (since it is not listed on Google's main navigation). I'm working with a customer who has b-2-b products and am trying to determine the value of adjusting his ecommerce pages to appear on Google Product Search.
Algorithm Updates | | EricVallee340 -
Removing secure subdomain from google index
we've noticed over the last few months that Google is not honoring our main website's robots.txt file. We have added rules to disallow secure pages such as: Disallow: /login.cgis Disallow: /logout.cgis Disallow: /password.cgis Disallow: /customer/* We have noticed that google is crawling these secure pages and then duplicating our complete ecommerce website across our secure subdomain in the google index (duplicate content) https://secure.domain.com/etc. Our webmaster recently implemented a specific robots.txt file for the secure subdomain disallow all however, these duplicated secure pages remain in the index. User-agent: *
Algorithm Updates | | marketing_zoovy.com
Disallow: / My question is should i request Google to remove these secure urls through Google Webmaster Tools? If so, is there any potential risk to my main ecommerce website? We have 8,700 pages currently indexed into google and would not want to risk any ill effects to our website. How would I submit this request in the URL Removal tools specifically? would inputting https://secure.domain.com/ cover all of the urls? We do not want any secure pages being indexed to the index and all secure pages are served on the secure.domain example. Please private message me for specific details if you'd like to see an example. Thank you,0