Local Keywords Not Ranking Well in a Geographic Location (but Rank Very Well Outside of Geographic Location)
-
Has anyone experienced, in the last few months, an issue where a website that once ranked well for 'local' terms in Google stopped ranking well for those terms (but saw a ranking decrease only within the geographic location contained within those keywords)?
For example only, some 'root' keywords could be:
- Chicago dentist
- Chicago dentists
- dentist Chicago
- dentists Chicago
What happens is that when a searcher searches from within the geographic area of Chicago, IL, the target website no longer ranks on the 1st page for these types of keyword phrases, but they used to rank in the top 3 perhaps.
However, if someone was to search for the same keyword phrases from another city outside of Chicago or set a custom location (such as Illinois or even Milwaukee, WI perhaps) in their Google search, the target website appears to have normal (high) 1st page rankings for these types of terms.
My own theory:
At first I thought it was a Penguin related issue but the client's rankings overall haven't appeared to have been affected on the date(s) of Penguin updates. Authority Labs and Raven Tools (which uses Authority Labs data) did not detect any ranking decrease and still reports all the local keyword rankings as high on the 1st page of Google.
However, when the client themselves goes to check their own rankings (as they are within that affected geographic area), they are no where to be found on the 1st page. :S
After some digging I found that (one of) the company's Google Places listings (the main office listing) became an 'unsupported' status in Google Maps. So now I am thinking that this phenomenon is due to the fact that other listings are now appearing in search results for the same location.
For example, in this case, an individual dentist's Google Places listing (who works within the dental office) is being displayed instead of the actual dental office's listing. Also, the dentist's name on the Google Places listing is being swapped out by Google with the name of the dental office, but if you click through to the Google Places listing, it shows the name of the individual Dentist.
Anyone encounter a similar issue or have any other theories besides the Google Places issue?
-
Oh, that's great, Scott. Linda is terrific. Please, say hi to her from Miriam. Good luck! Miriam
-
I have actually, since, contacted Linda regarding her services and training. Thanks!
-
Hi Scott,
It's a full time job keeping up with all of the changes in Local these days. I really hope the articles have helped - particularly Linda Buquet's workaround post. Thanks for using Q&A.
Miriam
-
Thanks Miriam, I'll take a look at those resources.
I actually have a correction to make in my original scenario. It is not that the place is 'unsupported', it is rather that it seems that one listing merged with another listing.
Thus the main office listing (along with 3 positive reviews) merged with one of the individual dentist listings.
It is worth mentioning that one Google rep did reply to me regarding another incident saying to check if the place was existent in Google Mapmaker. This opened up a whole other ballgame. If Google is using data from Map Maker, I can see why there are issues. That is a user driven database, verified by volunteer 'reviewers', etc...
I see some of the change histories for some of the places there a little scary. I think some 'users' don't realize that it is within Google's guidelines to have multiple listings for a single place if they are lawyers, dentists, etc.... or perhaps like some of the comments in the article links you posted mention... the listings are prone to competitor sabotage.
-
Hi Scott,
While I haven't personally experienced this, I have a couple of resources for you to check out regarding quite significant changes in the way Google is handling medical practices with multi-practitioners:
http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-duplicates-doctor-dentist-lawyer.html
http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-duplicate-listing-dentists-doctors.html
From the scenario you are describing, I believe you will find some familiar situations described in the above. I recommend you take the time to thoroughly read the posts I've linked to, as well as the comments following them. Please, let me know if this helps. Thanks!
Miriam
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
-
Why Google de-rank a website.
Hi, I was inspecting a website which is covering the topic of best wheelbarrow of 2021, it is a new website and and starts ranking on google. But, after few days it got de-rank automatically and Moz is also not showing any result to that. I was wandering why this just happened and what should I do if I made my website and will not face this kind of situation?
Technical SEO | | Moeen22330 -
My Ave. position and ranking is dropping!
Hi, I added canonicals last two days, and made a tiny change is our meta titles. (adding a secondary keyword). Now my ave. position and visibility has dropped very much. Can it be canonicals or is it the keywords? Can canonicals affect the website so quickly? My other question is can it be temporarily so should I wait more? how long? I should mention that our website content is not really good and I'm working on it. When I added meta tags we had a big jump in our ranking and then we stopped getting better,. But now we are going down! Can it be the content? Sorry I know that it is actually all, but i do not know which one matters more and do not understand why it happened immediately after adding canonicals. Our website is: www.pacificsmoke.com Appreciate your advice.
Technical SEO | | PSI.Account0 -
Homepage not ranking main keywords - structure error?
Dear, Moz community We have an issue. We have a classified advertisement website. Our website is built like this**homepage (**Optimized for main keyword, has latest listings from all categories ) - category 1 (we did not want to add alteration of the keyword we want to rank homepage, as we thought this would "compete" with homepage) - category 2 - category 3 - **category **4 The listing URLs look like this www.example.com/categoryname/listingname Now the issue is that the homepage is not ranking at all for the main keywords. When we used URL structure like this "example.com/main-keyword-listing-id" homepage was ranking (other sites). Now with new site we used the best practice and added url's as described above (/categoryname/listingid).This caused our homepage not to rank at all for the main keywords.What did we do wrong? We want our homepage to rank for the main keyword and categories for theirs. Should we 1. Change the category 1 name to main keyword (maybe some long tail) so we have the main keyword in URLs? So at least one of the main categories has the main keyword in the listing URLs2. Should we change the category listing urls all back to /main-keyword-listing-id? We thought that this was a bit spammy, so that´s why we used categories. _This means that all listings have same URL name and not best for ranking cateogries_3. Just link back to homepage internally with the main keyword and google should catch that? _Currently in menu you go to homepage clicking HOME but we can add for example our main keyword there - Latest car advertisements _I would be happy of any feedback.
Technical SEO | | advertisingtech0 -
Location-Aware Browsing issue. Could it cause a drop in rankings
Hello Mozzers. A client has seen big drop in their organic rankings in google.co.uk. Desktop results have dropped from page one to page three and mobile results have completely gone. They have recently added Location-Aware Browsing to the site so that it attempts to find you location and add this to the search box. However this appears to be in a loop and doesn't then turn off once you have allowed it. It keeps appearing in both Firefox and Chrome and asking for permission to use you location. Could this have resulted in the ranking drop? There have also rolled out a new mobile version and this has the same issue. Any ideas? Thanks in advance TH
Technical SEO | | highwayfive0 -
Detailed ranking question for the pros
Hi Community, We've been struggling with the search engine ranking of our SEO optimised homepage for a number of months. I'm going to provide an overview of the page stats in hope that somebody might have a suggestion as to what the problem might be or where we should be focusing our efforts. I have also provided the stats of our main competitor as I have no idea why they are ranking so high based on the stats provided: URL in question: https://mysite.com On Page Grade for our targeted keyword: A Domain authority: 36 Page authority: 45 Root Doman Links: 57 Total Links: 634 SE Ranking: #17 Competitor URL in question: https://competitorsite.com On Page Grade for same targeted keyword: A Domain authority: 32 Page authority: 43 Root Doman Links: 28 Total Links: 919 SE Ranking: #1 Another strange this about our homepage is that a second tier page on our site is actually ranking higher in the search ranking for the Targeted Keyword (#9), even though this page has not been optimised and has an On Page Grade of F. Does anybody have any suggestions of what we might be overlooking or what the issue here might be? -JF
Technical SEO | | ERpro0 -
Struggling to get indexed and ranked
I am working on a brand new website and really struggling to get the site indexed and listed for it's business name! I don't normally struggle and have got clients ranked for much more challenging keywords so I'm a bit stuck! The site is a new domain and has been live for about two months. The business previously used an old domain and this has been correctly 301'd to the new domain. There is no duplicate content with any other website when checked through Copyscape.com Webmaster Tools has been set-up and verified and this shows the site is being crawled but in Google site:www.website.com.au shows no pages as being indexed. Google Places has been set-up and verified, the site has also been added to local citation sites. There are also a few incoming links from other sources. Robots.txt is fine and has been checked. Business name mentioned in the title tag, footer and throughout the site. Does anyone have any ideas how I might be able to get ranked or is it just a waiting game? Or have I missed out something really obvious?? My last step is doing a crawl test to see if this brings up anything I have missed. Thanks Karen
Technical SEO | | Karen_Dauncey0 -
Watermarking Keywords
I've been viewing an seo companies website that claims to get small business websites to Google Page 1 for free or starting at $150/mo. I'v noticed that on all the website this company has done work on they include in the footer (usually as a watermark) all the keyword phrases. There don't apprear to be any sites that have been penalized. Isn't this poor SEO practice? I've included a screen shot of what I'm talking about. I just want to be clear. Thank you for your input. XnQUc.png
Technical SEO | | JulB0 -
Keyword and URL
I have a client who has a popular name (like 'Joe Smith'). His blog URL has only his first name and the name of his company in it, like joe.company.com. His blog doesn't rank well at all in the first 3-4 Google SERPs. I was thinking of advising him to change the URL of his blog to joesmith.company.com, and having his webmaster do 301 redirects from the old URL to the new one. Do you think this is a good strategy, or would you recommend something else? I realize ranking isn't just about the URL, it's about links, etc. But I think making his URL more specific to his name could help. Any advice greatly appreciated! Jim
Technical SEO | | JamesAMartin0