Can this make one's local listing vanish from Google local search?
-
Hi All,
Does anyone know if selecting "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under "service areas and location settings" in Google Places can cause a business's listing to disappear from Google local search?
My interior designer client has a bricks-and-mortar location, was ranking at about #20 for "interior designer" in Portland, and now has dropped from local search. I had "No, all customers come to the business location" selected previously.
In the past week, before the vanishing, I made these changes:
1. changed the service area to "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations",
2. removed "Portland" from the description in Google Places, and
3. submitted maybe two dozen directory listings to high DA sites (using Whitespark as the tool for determining where to post).
Thanks everyone!
Zack
-
It's my pleasure, Zack. Now, if your client does serve customers at his/her own location as well as on the road, my understanding of Google's guidelines is that you should show your address and use the Service Radius Tool. I believe this to be Google's preference in such cases. I really hope reporting your situation to the Google and Your Business Forum will yield an actionable answer. Miriam
-
Hi Miriam,
Wow - thank you so much for the generosity of time and expertise in your answer. Really inspiring contribution to the community (and to me)! Having read through the various possibilities, I suspect the issue is a bug. My client does serve customers at his location (which is a bona fide, bricks-and-mortar location), so that shouldn't be an issue. I've been really careful about NAP, and would be super shocked if the client's site were red flagged.
I was concerned about the directory listings just b/c I've read elsewhere that too many citations at once can raise red flags at Google. Still, it seemed unlikely given the relatively modest directory submissions I engaged in (and the fact that they were all on high DA sites.)
Navigating Google's guidelines for local search can feel pretty fogged-filled, so I really appreciate your guidance! I'll follow-up on the Google and Your Business Forum and see where that leads.
Thank you,
Zack
-
Hi Miriam,
Wow - thank you so much for the generosity of time and expertise in your answer. Really inspiring contribution to the community (and to me)! Having read through the various possibilities, I suspect the issue is a bug. My client does serve customers at his location (which is a bona fide, bricks-and-mortar location), so that shouldn't be an issue. I've been really careful about NAP, and would be super shocked if the client's site were red flagged.
I was concerned about the directory listings just b/c I've read elsewhere that too many citations at once can raise red flags at Google. Still, it seemed unlikely given the relatively modest directory submissions I engaged in (and the fact that they were all on high DA sites.)
Navigating Google's guidelines for local search can feel pretty fogged-filled, so I really appreciate your guidance! I'll follow-up on the Google and Your Business Forum and see where that leads.
Thank you,
Zack
-
Hi Zack,
Google's current guidelines (http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) on this read:
If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.
If you followed these steps correctly, it should not have caused your listing to disappear. However, there have been reports over the past several months from business owners who have had a similar experience. For example, Local SEO Andrew Shotland received a phone call from Google asking if he served customers at his location. This was in February, prior to the guideline update. When he answered no, his listing disappeared. See: http://www.localseoguide.com/hey-seos-if-google-maps-calls-dont-answer/
However, in cases like Andrew's, the vanishing of the listings happened because they did not choose to hide their address (generally, because Google hadn't yet clearly announced that they were supposed to do so).
Long before this, many people noticed that choosing the hide address function had the effect of instantly burying one's listing. Then, in November 2010, Mike Blumenthal reported that it appeared that this had changed and that hiding the address should not bury your blended listing, though it might still effect the Maps and 7-Packs of that time period. See: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2010/11/03/google-places-search-hiding-address-no-longer-buries-listing/
But, since the big guideline update in March 2012, (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-you-may-need-to-hide-your-google-places-address-asap) this issue was supposed to have been completely fixed and hiding the address was not ever supposed to bury your listing, though I have heard a couple of remarks to the effect that it may push your listing down a couple of places.
So, if you chose the 'serves customers at their locations' and 'do not show' options in your dashboard, according to my information, this should not be the culprit in what you're experiencing. Nor should removing a geographic modifier from your business description (using geo terms in descriptions has never really been considered a good idea and at one time, was forbidden by the guidelines). And, finally, gaining citations from directories should have the effect of improving your rankings - not destroying them.
So, at this point, there are several things to consider, as I see it:
-
Your client is experiencing the effects of a bug.
-
There is an external factor at play, such as a discrepancy of information between your current NAP (name, address, phone number) and 3rd party citations such as the ones you are building for the client via directories.
-
The client has been penalized for activity Google has red flagged (it doesn't happen often, but it does happen).
I would suggest that you report the whole incident via the Google and Your Business Forum: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business
If you do not receive a response from the Google Top Contributors or employees in the 'Technical Advice?' forum, your next step would be to try to use the troubleshooter at http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs to report that the client's listing has disappeared.
I hope my response hasn't been overwhelming but the history of this issue is fairly deep. I sincerely wish you good luck in finding resolution!
Miriam
-
-
Yes, I have had this happen to our listing when I accidentally switched to "this business serves customers at their locations", our listing disappeared from google maps. When I switched it back, it reappeared in a few days.
-
If you make changes to the address or phone, Google says it will require a verification. I would check and make sure removing Portland didn't change the site from live, to waiting to be verified.
-
I've heard of #1 before. Never tried it myself, I suspect #2 is the culprit.
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
-
Negative SEO with Google Images
We have a client in the heavy equipment industry that is trying to "push down" images in a Google image search that are associated with an accident over ten years ago. This client has launched a new website, and we have applied the best practices of on-page SEO (page titles, unique meta-descriptions, alt-image tags, focused keyword targeting, etc.). The challenge we have is with Google Image results. It seems the image results shown in the Google Image search rankings are often not inline with how images have been labeled in the alt-tag section. I have checked these images with the Moz Chrome extension, and I have often found the way the image is labeled in the alt-tag is not related to the search query made within the Google image search bar. I certainly may not be factoring in other weighted items when it comes to how images are ranked. Are there other ranking factors associated with Google Image results outside of the Alt-Image Tag? If so, what are those factors? Our ultimate goal is to provide a strategy that would allow us to tag images within this specific sector that are relevant to this specific heavy equipment product, and at the same time, "push down" the rankings of the images that have a negative association to them. We certainly want to take the right approach here, and want to earn these rankings. However, the way Google ranks images seems to be a mystery of sorts. Is there a specific strategy relevant to Google Image rankings that would fall inline with the challenge listed above? I appreciate any advice on this topic. Thank you.
Image & Video Optimization | | JaredBroussard0 -
Can you get rich snippets for Youtube hosted videos?
My website has several videos, mostly product reviews and tutorials. I'd like for these videos to show in the SERPs with rich snippets, but I am hosting them through Youtube. What is your experience with Youtube hosted videos? Do they generate rich snippets? Or will Google always rank the Youtube video over your web page?
Image & Video Optimization | | TMI.com1 -
G+ Profile and Pages won't let me list categories
Hi Mozzers, I'm working on a client's G+ profile and sub-pages and the competition all have one simple category - 'House Clearance'. When you start typing there is a drop down and this category isn't present for us? Nowhere near.This is what the client does and I can't work out howe to get it in the page? Anyone else had this problem. Thanks Gareth
Image & Video Optimization | | Bush_JSM0 -
Places listings vs other ORGANIC listings
Not sure how to search for exactly the answer I'm looking for, because frankly my question (at least to me) is hard to describe. I will try my best, though! So I have a client who has an audiology business. They are located in Denver, CO. For search, we have them listed in the PLACES portion of the local search results (with the map, phone, address, etc). We saw this as a pretty big win, because its a fairly competitive market. HOWEVER, the client feels like those listings aren't as clicked on, or aren't as prominent as say, a regular organic listing that would have a page title, and description. I am assuming that isn't correct, that if I could only have 1 listing I'd want the PLACES one, but it occurred to me that this assumption isn't really based on any data I have personally read. So my question is two-fold. 1a. Is my assumption about being in PLACES accurate, that that listing is more desirable (even if I could pick which one to get, which i don't think is realistic) and 1b. Has anyone seen or have data that backs up my assertion one way or another. Would love your thoughts! William Smith @williamsmith
Image & Video Optimization | | AudigyGroupDigital0 -
Any tips for optimising for Local Search/Google Places
I have a client that used to come up on Google Places consistently for some very competitive keywords - when they ranked quite low for them through their normal website - places would see them above all the organic results in normally number 2 position - whereas they would rank between 16 - 26 normally We have optimised the site and have 'A' grade keywords for the ones we are interested in google placing for and just recently we are out of it all together, even though we have improved their optimisation for that word with SEO Someone said that their phone number on the website had to match perfectly with google places and so does their address. Is this true? Is there anything else that will help them keep their position in places ? ie. setting up a Google + page etc., Any advise would be appreciated thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | intermingle0 -
Google images indexing on no-index html page?
Hi, I wonder if a image can get indexed, included in google images if it is located on a html page with a no-follow tag? Thanks for your help.
Image & Video Optimization | | wildnis0 -
Consolidating mulitple Google+ Local pages with one Google+ Page
Hello All, I have trawled the internet, but can seem to find the answer to this question: "How will Google integrate multiple Google+ Local pages with one Google+ Page?" A bit of background to this. I work for a company that started online, but has since moved into retail stores. We currently have 14 stores around the UK. Now each of these stores has a Google+ Local page which were automatically converted over from the old style Google Places pages. I have read that these pages should be integrated with our regular Google+ account. All of the examples I have read about seem to relate to offline businesses that have moved into online, rather than online business that have moved into physical retails stores. And these examples are just one store, one Googe+ Local listing & one Google+ business page. That seems simple enough... but what about multiple locations?! Do I just need to sit on my hands and see what happens? Or are there things I can be doing now? Cheers for any help! Rich
Image & Video Optimization | | JBGlobalSEO0 -
Targeting Local Search Terms
I normally advise clients never to optimise around keywords with very low or even zero recorded Google search volumes. However, if the core keyword has decent volumes but the organisation is serviing specific towns/cities/locations would you consider it valid to optimise for : core keyword + focused location (even if this has zero search volumes). The Google Places results are obviously highly relevant but depending on the core keyword you sometimes get the 3-box places at the top but sometimes in the middle of the natural results.
Image & Video Optimization | | bjalc20110