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
-
Google My Business - What is the best way to remove "Duplicate Address"? Help!
Google can be such a pain with managing listings - especially when you are an agency managing a client's listing! I am hoping someone can help with this... How do I permanently delete a “duplicate address?” In the Google My Business dashboard (classic view), under account summary – I click duplicate locations. From here, I can easily remove a duplicate location - that is not the issue. The issue is for duplicate addresses. For this, we only have the option to resolve address, which directs you to the business’ location details. Our options are then to: 1. Change the business NAP 2. Permanently close location 3. Remove the listing from your dashboard (removing it from dashboard doesn’t delete it from Google). We edited the business’ name, phone number, address and website – to try and make it a duplicate location, because if we are able to make it a duplicate location then we know we will have the option to **Remove Duplicate. **Nothing has changed though. We don't want to mark this as a permanently closed location because if somebody does come across the listing down the road it is going to be misleading. The business is not actually closed! Any insight would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
Local Listings | | bcallegary0 -
Does Google call your satellite offices and ask what's down the street?
Is this a real thing? Do they actually do this? Should I be concerned and train my receptionists to know their surroundings?
Local Listings | | marketingdepartment.ch6 -
Google My Business - More than 1 business under same roof?
Good morning Mozzers from London, England, I have been having some issues around local SERPs and getting our businesses to rank. The issue I have is we run GYMS, however within our gyms certain locations we run additional businesses like CHILDREN'S NURSERIES or PHYSIOTHERAPY CLINICS etc. Now these are run affectively as different businesses, and you don't need to be a gym member to use these services. However Google only lets you have 1 primary category per business address. And all of our locations are rightly registered as GYMS. So I can't then produce a secondary business listing at the same address.....can I? Has anyone else experienced this problem, or know of a solution? Kindest regards Ben
Local Listings | | Bendall0 -
How long until an address changes after verification on Google My Business?
Started working with a company recently that had a Google My Business with an old address. I went ahead and claimed it and verified it with the postcard, but it still shows the old address if search. How long will that be?
Local Listings | | EcommerceSite0 -
Getting listing in Google map results
Hi all A website i'm current working on isn't showing up in the google map list results on normal search page, anybody know of any reasons this may be? I've never had any issues previously i just registered on google places but since changes to google business it doesn't seem to be automatic any more. Currently i have two different other websites showing in these listings for the search term however my client is questioning why they are not showing up here also as they have the same business type related to the search term.
Local Listings | | mari-rose0 -
Default Local SEO question: Does Google really do improptu check ins?
I have a client who has multiple locations within his state, many of which are satellite offices. Although they don't have anyone working at these satellite offices full time, they have office space available to them their, someone who can take calls/mail and do use the space frequently in person. We've been in the process of cleaning up duplicate and incorrect listings in directories to get on the map in the SERPs in these markets, but the local SEO outfit we've hired has come back with a problem I found surprising. In order to clean up the duplicate & incorrect Google+ profiles that we've got out there for these offices, we evidently need to work with an actual Google moderator. This moderator has said that the satellite offices in question are actually not real business locations and are in violation of G+ guidlines. The local SEO I'm using says that it's not uncommon for Google to actually send someone out to do an in person improptu visit when they are suspicious that a listing might not belong in their listings, and I find this really surprising. Do any of you have any experience with whether this is the case? FWIW, this is a real business that could have someone working remotely in these offices remotely if that's what it took to make Google happy, but they'd rather not and certainly don't need to in order to offer their services in these markets.
Local Listings | | LeeAbrahamson0 -
Local Medical Practice Listing Question
We have 4 separate locations for an OB-GYN practice. They are XYZ OB-GYN and are affiliated with ABC Health System. All of these OBGYN offices are located in buildings belonging to ABC Health System with multiple practices (other doctors). Two of the locations have seperate suite numbers & two don't. How do we promote our OBGYN practices if they have the same address (with no suite number) as the other practices in the same exact building? I don’t believe Google wants multiple listings for separate practices that are using the same address without a suite number.
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
Local Listing Question for Vet Office
We have done the off-page directory listings work for a veterinary office (submitting to the main data-aggregators, as well as sites such as CitySearch/Manta/Yelp) & now want to supplement those with submissions for each individual doctor. There are 8 doctors at their practice. The plan was to submit them to only 3 sites - the main data-aggregators of LocalEze, ExpressUpdateUSA & Factual. They only have one phone number (their main number) to use for listings. So can we submit the doctors all with the same number? Or is that a total waste of time b/c listings will end up being duplicated/merged down the road? What do you recommend that we do?
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120