Time based search positions, are they a thing?
-
I've been working on a particularly competitive keyword which I have been obsessively checking twice a day for a couple of weeks. I have noticed something odd which I'd like to check if anyone in the community has picked up too.
If I check the SERP position in the morning, before 8am, my rankings are gaining, but not as quickly as I'd like. If I check the positions in the afternoon, before 5pm, I notice a gain of two - three SERP positions.
The site I'm working on is listed as a local business and it's opening hours have been added. Is Google serving SERP positions based on opening hours? That's my best guess, but I'd appreciate any other possible explanations.
Thanks in advance
-
Hi Matthew,
You write:
"... my client operates as a financier. As a result, the company offers online finance applications, which are supported by an effective call centre."
I want to verify:
1. Does this business actually make face-to-face contact with its customers?
2. Are the ranking changes you are noticing in the organic results or in the local pack of results?
-
Hi Dave & Miriam,
Thanks for your responses. They both have me intrigued.
To clarify a couple of points, I'm checking the rankings from my machine in the office. I don't think the results are being affected by my search location or my client's as we're based in the same area and I'm the one picking up the fluctuation. I'd like to know if it's possible that I'm accessing a different database at different times of the day?
Alternatively, is it possible that the rankings are changing over a period of hours on a daily basis? I've never noticed swings this quickly or with such a regular difference on a daily basis. I'm noticing the exact same shift today.
Miriam, to give you a little more information: I'm based in South Africa and my client operates as a financier. As a result, the company offers online finance applications, which are supported by an effective call centre. Applicants can apply for finance at any point during the day, however, the call centre and offices are only open during business hours and their company listings note this. My only competitors on my target keywords are our major local banks, so the space is competitive.
I'm watching the keyword very closely and would appreciate any suggestions on documenting the shifts so that I can get to the bottom of it.
Again, thanks for the input.
-
Hi Matthew,
Well, I'm fascinated! If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the business seems to rank better in the local pack during the hours you've stated it is open for business on the Google+ Local page. This is something I've not seen documented anywhere, but I just spoke with Nyagoslav Zhekov of WhiteSpark.ca and he mentioned that he had once come across a discussion in which a business was failing to rank apparently because their stated hours of operation wrongly represented the business as only being open in the middle of the night.
I don't have any documentation or examples, but an anecdote like this does make one have to consider that Google may well take hours of operation into consideration. I am curious about what your client's business model is, if you can share. Like a retail shop, an emergency service? I wonder if it could be more of a factor in certain industries. Google must get it that people looking for certain things might want them right away. For example, if I'm searching for a pizza, I'd probably want to know which restaurants are open right now. If I'm searching for a lawyer ... maybe not so much.
I'd be interested to read any other details you can provide. As I've said, this isn't a well-cited phenomenon, so you may be breaking some ground here with what you've noticed.
-
This is not the full answer, but I'm guessing that the explanation you've already given may have some weight. But also Google doesn't use one database and they can often be out of sync. I've had examples where I say something is #1 anonymously and my boss checks in London and he says it's #2. I then check again and it's moved to #2.
Great to see if there is a more definitive answer on this subject.
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 My Business: Company listing is showing in search instead of division address - similar names/same city
Hi! I have a client whose company name is very similar to one if their company divisions. This division has multiple locations but its main location is in the same city as the parent company. The problem is that when you search for the division, the parent company shows up. The parent company has a physical address, but most users searching need to be going to the division address which takes customers. They are having problems with customers coming to the parent company address instead. I have made the Google My Business parent company page to show service areas instead of their business address. Yet, their listing still comes up first when searching for the division location. This is because of part of the parent company name is in the division name. My client wants users to be able to find the division more so than the parent company. Anyone had this issue before? Any tips would be great!
Local Listings | | agrier0 -
Is having two websites with the same NAP equal to the local search visibility issues?
My company works in two directions: printing and website design / development. I have one website for both printing and website development but it doesn’t have “printing” in domain name (velvdesign.com) I would like to rank higher for printing related keywords. Do you think I should have two separate websites, one for printing (velvprinting.com), another for website design /development (velvdesign.com)? If yes, am I going to get into NAP’s issue because my company has only one location? I can get the second phone number to improve local search visibility. Thank you very much in advance for your time!
Local Listings | | VELV0 -
Search Visibility Dip
Hello, During the site crawl in the week of Jan 29th, my site experienced a somewhat significant dip in search visibility. While all my dashboards for the brand experienced a dip, it was most noticeable in a dashboard focused on a specific region. Overall, I didn't make any major changed to the site, nor did the competitors I'm tracking. FWIW, the competitors I'm tracking stayed steady and didn't move up or down in visibility during my dip. I stay fairly up-to-date with SEO best practices and I don't believe there were any algorithm changes during this time. Now, there is one possible reasoning for this dip. Sometime before the week of Jan 29th, we began a new web promotion. To track this promotion, I added some minor JavaScript in the header. This additional JavaScript did slow the site speed slightly, but only to a rating of "Average" based on PageSpeed Insights. Does anyone have any insights as to why my site may have suffered a dip during the week of Jan 29th? Thanks.
Local Listings | | Dions0 -
Website showing #1 in Local search, disappeared from Organic search - previously #1?
We manage a website santamaryflorist.com - a local Ohio florist. She is #1 ranked on Google Local results (and also on Yahoo and Bing). The site's homepage was previously #1 ranked for Organic but has disappeared from Organic ranking over the past few days. It shows occasionally as #1 in organic, like every few hours, but typically does not show. - Sub-pages are still showing on organic but not front page- Last week we had some issues with crawl errors but those seem to be resolved for several days (pages not available)_Why would the site be showing #1 in Local but only occasionally as the #1 result in organic but most of the time not showing in Organic results at all? _
Local Listings | | william20390 -
How to change your location for local search results?
Hi Everybody Back in december 2015 I came across this article https://gofishdigital.com/google-results-change-location/ explaining how to change location for local search results using the google emulation tool by setting up new coordinates. This was also picked up by mikeblumenthals' blog as being one of the best way of doing this. I tried it at the time and it worked very well. I tried using it last week and again this week but my location no longer seems to update. I have tried it on fifferent computers located in different locations and still it doesn't work. Does anyone know if this feature is no longer available and if not what else they'd recommend to verify local search results. Thanks
Local Listings | | coolhandluc0 -
No Location option in Incognito Search Settings
I was checking on a client ranking and went to Incognito in Chrome for the search. I went to search settings to set the location and thought I had done something wrong. I closed and went back to search settings and still no location setting. See attached. Interestingly, when I went to my signed in Chrome and set the location and then went to incognito and went to search settings, then location showed up for me. This also begs a question about why Google has this where you must be signed in to set a location in Incognito mode. Thanks for any input you have, Robert G1lS9EK.png cRRlULo.png
Local Listings | | RobertFisher0 -
Google Local Listing Ranking/Traffic Metrics in the Google Search Console?
A client of mine asked me if it was possible to see local listing data (ranking/traffic stats) in the Google Search Console for a URL. I figured the Google Search Console only shows organic metrics not 3-pack/local listing performance. However I could be mistaken. Does the Google Search Console report this?
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Is getting a top position in a local results block acheiveable if you are outside of the central zone ?
Most of the keywords / phrases we are targeting have the city (London) appended to it ie. service name London, service name in London etc. The business of the site we are working on is located in London, but not in central London. Because of this i think the site is not being ranking as well as it could be (compared to other sites that in the centre or nearer to the centre with seemingly lower profiles, including have no reviews on their Google + Pages). The site itself is relatively strong fluctuating between 3rd and 5th spot for the target phrases in the organic listings, but because of the local block which sits under position 2 our site always towards the bottom of the first page. We've submitted the site to all the relevant local directories and listings sites, got 3 google reviews on the Plus profile and added the correct local html schema markup to any of our sites pages where our address is mentioned, but still we are sitting at around #12 on the local listings block (when you click Map results for...) at the bottom of the 7 local listings. So the site dosnt seem far off being on the front page, but I feel ive exhausted the optimisation i can do, any ideas how i can make any gains in these local listings ?
Local Listings | | Sam-P1