Google Local Algorithm Changes?

[MABES]

I was wondering if you have heard about any Google Local algorithm changes.  We have about 200 franchise locations.  Some of our locations have dropped significantly over the past few weeks.  Locations that were showing up in the 1-3 positions are now no longer showing on the first page.  This is for very relevant phrases for our main line of business (which is also in our business name)... ‘Phrase, CITY NAME’.  These locations have plenty of positive Google reviews. We would typically rank well for a phrase like that based on our relevance.

I did some brainstorming.  Do you think any of these could have any impact?

• Google is all about things looking and feeling natural including link building, etc.  We have used Yext which made a lot of changes across the web to fix addresses, etc.  Do you think Google may be seeing this as unnatural?  Too many changes at to many sites in to short a period of time?
• Along those same lines, do you think Google may be penalizing some of our franchise pages for being to ‘perfect’?  It would be ‘natural’ for addresses to have some difference across the web and a bit unnatural to have them all match so perfectly.
• I know that Google has always stated the business name should be listed in Google Local the way it is listed to the general public.  Things such as “Business Name Boston” should be listed as “Business Name”.  Each of our franchise locations is named in house to reflect their geo location..... "Business Name Boston", "Business Name St. Louis".  Many of our competitors also use the practice of attaching geo terms as well.  Do you think we may be getting hit with a penalty now even though we have listed things on Google with the Geo term for years.... and is how WE refer to each location?  Is it possible that by working with Yext, we drew attention to this practice?  Should we remove our local listings geo term on Google Local?  How about across the web?
• We are in a business that does not require customers to come to our location.  Some of our locations have not suppressed the address in their local listings while others have.  Many of our competitors have not.  Do you think this could play into it?
• Some of our locations that are not showing in Local have good organic results.  Have you heard anything about Google dropping Local if they show in organic?
• I know Google has been looking at social media more and more and I believe they will continue to do so.  If our local pages have no social presence, could this adversely affect things?  (I think this is probably not the case…. but wanted to throw it out there)
• I have noticed that in some cases where Local has dropped, we have multiple offices in that metro area.  Is it possible that this could affect things?
• Have you heard of any Local algorithm changes?  I know they are releasing a new dashboard sporadically, could this be in conjunction with a larger Local algorithm change?
• Our CMS tool does not allow us to change Title/Meta per page (I know... terrible!!).  So every page has the same title and same meta description. (We are changing our CMS system!  Can't wait!).  Could this play into it?

Thanks for any feedback!

[WhoWuddaThunk]

I'll try answer your questions in the order you had them

• I don't think this would be a problem.  It's only natural that people would set themselves to the task of fixing all of their location data at one time.
• Again, I don't think this is a problem.  There are people out there who are naturally this detail oriented, and would just naturally have perfect listings.
• This could be a problem.  Is your legal business name "Business Name Location?"  If it is, then you shouldn't have to worry about it, but if you are trying to stuff a keyword in there you do have a problem.
• As long as you set your places profile to show that you do business at the their location you are ok with this one.
• From my experience they will just slap the local on top of my normal organic listing.  The only time this doesn't happen is some of my internal pages where I get both a local and universal result.
• Social Media for SEO is still in debate, but the vast majority of SEO's agree that it does have at least a small impact.  That being said, I wouldn't attribute this to your problems unless all of your competitors have massive followings with tons of interaction.
• Google isn't nice enough to announce all of their changes, so the only people that would have any idea are the ones with research departments.  That being said, I haven't heard of any, but I'm sure they are constantly tweaking it.  The only big announcement was Matt Cutts saying that merchant quality was going to become an indicator sometime this year.
• I can feel your pain here.  My company works on a lot of businesses in the same vertical, and the CMS's in this vertical create thousands of pages with the same exact title tags.  My first month is usually spent indexing the site numerous times to try find all the stray Titles that need to be changed.  From my experience this will have a negative impact on your search results.  I'd work quickly to fix the issue.

[choiceenergy]

here are two questions from myself regarding local that may help you a bit

G+ places/local - Company Categories and Pages question (including write-up questions)

Local Citation Help - New Business in Old Location of same type of business

While these may not fully and/or exactly answer your questions i believe you may find some valuable info from knowledgeable sources which could help you at least get on the right path until someone else(more knowledgeable than me on this topic) has time to really answer you fully.