New google maps listing was showing & now is not
-
Here is a brief description of what I am doing and what happened.
I recently acquired a new client who had an unclaimed google business listing. We claimed the listing and within 2 days it was showing up for its main search term on Google. Almost immediately my client was receiving new calls from the listing. Within a week the listing no longer shows up with the other listings on the home page but does show up when searching on google maps.
Does anyone have a lot of experience with Google+ & business listings? If yes, what are some of the most common reasons listings might be removed, shuffled around, increased or decreased in ranking, etc.
Sincerely,
Garret
-
Hi Garret,
I have some questions and then some thoughts for you:
Where was the listing ranking before you claimed it (what letter)?
Where did it rank after you claimed it (what letter)?
When you say it is showing up in Google Maps, what position does it have in the list view?
Is there any chance that claiming the listing might have drawn Google's attention to the accidental existence of you having more than 1 listing in existence for this business? Have you searched for duplicates?
How good is the client's organic authority?
Did you notice a general ranking shift at this time for any of the client's competitors? Could Google have coincidentally been reordering results at the time you claimed the listing or has everybody else in the pack stayed in about the same position?
Some ideas: read through this article to check off potential issues with ranking failures:
http://moz.com/blog/troubleshooting-local-ranking-failures
The other thing I'm thinking of hearkens back to my early days in Local SEO. It seems to me that I remember instances in which a newly claimed listing would appear high in the packs for a brief period of time, then fall off to a much lower position and then would have to climb back up the rankings based on effort/strength. I haven't heard this phenomenon being mentioned in many years, but I wonder if it might still exist here and there.
I'd highly advise looking into the duplicate listing possibility and do go through the article I've linked to:)
-
Hi,
Without knowing the particulars of your listing, I'll attempt to answer your questions:
"(1) what are some of the most common reasons listings might be removed,
(2) shuffled around,
(3) increased or decreased in ranking, etc."
(1) Removal could be due to spamming the description (keyword stuffing), though lately I have seen highly over optimized listings that are not being removed. In the past, a listing could be removed if the business owner attempted to keyword stuff the business name, but again this seems to be allowed now (it's referred to as a "descriptor."). Is it possible they have duplicate listings? That could be causing a removal.
(2), (3) --> I see the shuffling around with my clients all the time. This is influenced by the keyword, where the search is being conducted (meaning where Google thinks you are when conducting the keyword search), and other factors that I do not think Google discloses. I have noticed that at different times of the day my clients appear higher or lower in the local rankings. Perhaps Google shuffles around the results to see what gets better click-through-rates (and in theory creating a better user experience.)
Increase/decrease in rankings can be influenced by the user's location. Then again, what kind of increase/decrease are you talking about? A few spots? Totally common. 20 spots? Tough to say.
You mentioned that the listing is not in the local pack, but appears when you click on "Map results for [Insert Keyword]." I have seen that too, but cannot tell you why that happens. There has been speculation that it has to do with either onsite optimization or GMB over-optimization, but I don't know if anyone outside of Google really knows. What I can tell you is that this happened to one of my clients. His listing would disappear from the local pack, but be #3 in the map results. Within a few weeks this stopped happening, and now his listing is consistently in the local pack.
If you would like, PM the listing in question and I'll take a look. Good luck.
-
Monica when he said the client is receiving calls this means that the listing was actually there and if those calls are stop this means that the listing isn’t there anymore…. (This is how it logically should be).
When you are saying the listing appears when you go to Google Maps but not in the main results I assume that other competitors will have some edge may be better listing optimization against the desired keywords, better reviews, better rating them yours and more.
My recommendation is to do the audit and figure out where the problem is and go from there accordingly.
Hope this helps!
-
Are you signed into Google when doing these searches? That is a huge factor in local rankings. Can you track the SERP of the map listing in any tool?
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
-
Hi all, we recently started to claim Apple Maps listings on behalf of our agency's clients, is it possible to transfer ownership of an Apple Maps listing from one Apple ID account to another Apple ID account?
We'd like to claim and complete our clients' Apple Maps listings with our agency Apple ID, then once we're finished completing and verifying each listing, transfer to the client's Apple ID. Is it possible to transfer ownership of an Apple Maps listing from one Apple ID to another? Thanks
Local Listings | | NOUS-Australia0 -
GMB 1 listing for store , multiple additional listings for outside sales reps
I am working with a business that has setup their google my business as: 1 main GMB for store location with its physical address and unique phone - ie business name "ABC Lumber" 1 GMB account for the business name followed by the city name ie. "ABC Lumber Santa Monica" with an address in Santa Monica and different phone than the store location GMB Account but points to same website. Another GMB account for called. "ABC Lumber Redondo Beach" with an address and same phone as the Santa Monica GMB account but points to same website. So basically there is a main account which is the store, and then the sales reps want to create multiple GMB accounts of their own that are service area only accounts. Do you see a problem with this?
Local Listings | | lkbackus0 -
Local Pack Ads v. Organic Business Listings
Hey everyone, So I'm noticing lately that Google is showing ads via AdWords for my locations in the local pack. I am fine with that, but unfortunately it is now driving me a little bit insane wondering how much Google really cares about NAP, distance from centroid and or user, links to domain, completed business profile and so on. They will pull an ad into the top of the local pack for my location, yet, my actual organic business listing in some cases will not even show up until I hit the second page of business results. I get that it's Adwords, it's pay-to-play, but from most accounts, the differences in ranking for traditional listings results compared to business results on both desktop and mobile are pretty different. For example, by doing my traditional SEO best practices, I can rank high in traditional listing results even when my business does not show in the local listings. I have done this time and time again. I am able to accept that since we have 100 locations in the US and our lists were an absolute mess before I got here, that some of our NAP across multiple directories and listing sites are not exactly up to snuff which I have been working on. So I guess the thing is, if my location in Google's eyes is not good enough to be shown organically for the user even at the bottom of page of one of business results, why is it good enough to show an ad for my business location for that query as the absolute first result? Again, I know its Ad Words which basically allows you to cut in line like that special pass you can buy at a roller coaster park, but still. Isn't their goal to provide the best possible experience for their user? If they feel something is worth holding back my organic listing from the user, why is it fine with them to show the user that same location with the top possible local pack spot in an ad? I guess this is more of a rant than anything but I wanted to know if anyone else is dealing with this or anyone has any info they have found that could help shed light on this? It kind of just kicked everything I thought about trust, authority, links in order to rank in the local pack organically out the window. Thanks! -Ben
Local Listings | | Davey_Tree0 -
Bad Google Reviews - Should I Remove the Map From My Website?
I have a Google map on a website. Currently, there are only two 1-star reviews — which show next to the company name on the map. We added the map for local SEO reasons, but I’m thinking I should take it down because customer experience supersedes local SEO. Why boost search rankings if the content will drive people away from converting? So basically, customer experience > local SEO. Question: Do you all agree, or do any of you have any evidence that I should leave it? For example, it’s below the fold, so it isn’t the first thing they see, and we really need to boost their local SEO.
Local Listings | | BlueCorona1 -
How can I submit Baidu business listings if I live outside of China?
A client of our wants to manage business listings for three locations in China. We wanted to submit to Baidu but from what I've learned this is highly regulated (you live in China, pay a fee and call them to confirm). This is the only article I could find about submitting to Baidu: http://www.nanjingmarketinggroup.com/blog/baidu/how-can-baidu-maps-help-my-business Are there any conduit or 3rd party services available that can handle this? Thanks
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Not all business locations showing for a brand search
I've got a client with multiple business locations however when I type the company name into Google it's only displaying 2/3 of the branches in the local pack for that SERP. The client's picked up on this and would like the third location to appear in the local pack when people search for their company name. I have a suspicion that it's because the third location (the one that isn't displaying) has an address that's exactly the same as several other businesses that are located in offices directly above or to the side of them. My (very flakey) theory is that Google is perhaps uncertain about the exact location of this business given that there are several others with the same address but different business names, so the NAP consistency is being diluted and Google is simply leaving them out of the local pack due to the uncertainty over which business is in fact located at 2 West Street. So my question is, has anyone else had any issues of not all business locations showing in the local pack for a brand name query and if so how did you solve it?
Local Listings | | PeteW0 -
Google Places Multiple Phone Numbers
Hi Guys, Looking for a advice on having multiple phone numbers. We have dealers who have both a sales phone number and service phone number for the same address. Is it possible to specify this in Google Places so both numbers are displayed in the SERP GP listing as shown below link? Link - http://tinyurl.com/mto86ts Or is it possible to even add multiple numbers on the actual GP local page ? http://tinyurl.com/n7r9w3d Any advice on this? Seems to be from my initial research, the only way to two numbers is via the description. Thanks,
Local Listings | | MBASydney
Matt0 -
Convert Google Plus page to Business page
I have a google plus page for my company edspire.com, https://plus.google.com/b/107395030190889162381/107395030190889162381/posts When I created it I don't think I set it up as a business so I'd like to convert to one. As far as I can see it is not possible to do this. What is the recommended process, do I just create a new one and migrate content over or is there some way to merge them? Should I then delete the old one or is it helpful to keep double posting? Thanks, Jim
Local Listings | | yojimbo230