Organic and Local ranking changes UK
-
Hi,
Has anyone seen any major fluctuations in local and organic rankings over the last week?
I'm recording some significant changes, cannot fathom why at the moment other than Pigeon is still maybe rolling out...
Dan
-
We have seen quite a few ranking changes in the UK SERPS across the weekend. For both local terms with geographical qualifiers and those without. Not huge swings either way maybe + or - 5 places but enough of a pattern to think it is more than just coincidence. Niches include legal, B2B, consumer goods, fashion, web design, home and gardens and recruitment. Mainly positive movements for us.
We keep a close eye on them across the week.
-
Yes Pigeon hit the UK back in December. BrightLocal started noticing changes around Dec 18th and asked me about it.
I told them it sounded like Pigeon and spotted some telltale changes that made me pretty sure it was, so I called it as an official update. Then SE Land announced it with confirmation from Google on 12/22.
-
Thanks Rob,
This is more or less the conclusion we arrived at.
The locations are all in the South of the UK apart from one but are all in separate towns/areas and each location is optimised as such (We're not targeting multiple locations on one page).
Hopefully we may see an up-turn over the next weeks if the A/B testing theory is valid.
I'll post again if I notice anything further.
Dan
-
Dan,
The first thing that came to mind was something Pigeon-related. I have spoken to a few people in my office regarding the updates and the same trend seemed prevalent - several months of boosted performance followed by a quick decline perhaps 2-3 months later. However, if you optimize all of your sites in a similar fashion, they should all be getting the same negative downturn (unless you did something different with this one). This might be of interest to you:
http://moz.com/blog/pigeon-advice-from-local-seos
Specifically: "After doing lots of Pigeon analysis, I'm almost positive that Google is testing at least 3 versions of Pigeon on different datacenters and rotating results - maybe for AB testing."
More details here:
I don't know if this is still an on-going process, but it sounds as if it might be a factor.
Are your locations geographically near to each other? Are they in different nations/state/provinces? It's possible for this site Google has interpreted these locations as being "close enough" to be centralized, or "distant enough" to not hold any significant relevance.
Hope this helps with some insight!
-
Hi Robert thanks for your reply,
It's only one site that seems to have been affected and I've checked all the usual signs, no site changes have been made of any note.
Rankings had actually notably improved over the last few months and now all of a sudden seen some dramatic changes in the last few days.
Main changes have occurred on location pages - Google appears to have opted to use the home page now to rank for the target terms which is strange. My first thought was that Google had dropped the organic listing for the pages as the same URL appeared in local results, but there seems to be no real pattern of this occurring and is inconsistent with competitor rankings.
Dan
-
Hello Dan,
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint) I haven't seen any major fluctuations with any of my clients - most changes in the rankings I can explain with factors other than potential algorithm updates.
I assume you have taken the standard steps - observed link profile for potentially harmful links, assessed sites for duplicate content, checked on competition levels and performed checks on all known on-site factors?
Have you made any changes to your sites in the recent past?
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
-
GMB page for law not ranking but individual attorneys' names are
I'm kind of a newbie to everything marketing. I run the marketing for a small law firm. When I google certain keywords, the law firm's GMB page doesn't show up in the local pack or rankings. What shows up instead are the individual GMB pages under the lawyers' names even though we don't do anything to maintain those pages. Their individual pages don't have content or nearly as many reviews. I maintain the firm's GMB page by posting content and that's also where the bulk of our reviews go. Why would pages that aren't maintained show up in the local pack while the page that I keep a close eye on doesn't show up?
Local Listings | | elisa175910 -
Google Local Listing Visibility for Regional Queries
I manage a variety of small local programs that are located in areas that are more known by the region than they are by the town (the Adirondacks and the Catskills to be specific). In the past, the local algorithm understood that when the query was related to the region, it would show a variety of results from that region. It seems that for the Catskills they have changed the algorithm to pinpoint the center of the region and only show results that are in the near vacinity of that pinpoint, rather than a variety of results from the region. The Adirondacks however is still showing a variety of results. For those of you not familiar, the Adirondack are 9,375 square miles and the Catskills are 5,892 square miles and are both very rural mountain regions and popular travel destinations. Google clearly understands that these regions are geographically oriented and shows a local pack for relevant results such as "Catskills Resorts" or "Catskills Restaurants", but over the past few weeks, they have started only showing 2 results for the query Catskills resorts, both located near Shandaken, NY becasue that is where Google has deemed the marker for the Catskills is (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Catskill+Mountains/@42.009289,-74.3996212,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89dc665668f82f31:0x3b012376423b8efa!8m2!3d42.0092908!4d-74.3821116) In reality, there are hundreds of resorts within the Catskills. (Note there is a Catskill, NY within the Catskills, however Google is not even confusing this town with the region). Does anyone have ideas on how to get Google to understand that the Catskills are more than Shandaken, NY? I feel like we suddenly have no hope of ranking locally and most of the businesses I manage are located in very small towns that people are not specifically searching for.
Local Listings | | Your_Workshop0 -
Should I get an SSL if my non-SSL site is ranking well?
I have a client with a local divorce law business. He's ranking really well, and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that rank. His site does not have SSL. I feel like it would be good to get rid of the "not-secure" message from Chrome, but not important enough to risk ranks. Would love to get thoughts from this forum on this. Thanks!
Local Listings | | aj6130 -
Javacript & Schematic Markup for Local SEO
I am trying to apply schematic markup for a client who is using javascript for their store hours and maps. Will Google be able to comprehend the data in the Javascript file if I set up a schematic property for this? I wanted to use this specific property http://schema.org/openingHours. Our client is also importing reviews from a third party source. Would it be possible to apply schematic markup to a 3rd party source? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
I am looking for some Local authoritative websites and aggregators of local business data
Does anyone know where I can obtain a list of aggregators of local business data for the UK? I am also looking to understand the best way to find local authoritative websites that I could build backlinks with. Hope you can help. Many thanks Nick
Local Listings | | SEM_at_Lees0 -
Local Citation Building Services Similar to Yext
I have several clients looking for local submission services similar to Yext (since they are already subsribers). Can anyone suggest a service similar to Yext for an SBO. Likewise, do any of you know any local citation services that are similar to Yext, but specifically for the hotel/hospitality industry? I was considering localeze.com, but I'm skeptical because I believe the citations I will be getting there will be similar to the ones I'm getting on Yext. Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Local Listings | | maxcarnage1 -
Google Local Feeds - Cover & Profile Photos??
Hello - I am trying to help a biz w several dozen locations with their Google+ local pages. However, I'm not sure automation is the best solution: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3370250?hl=en In particular: Can you stipulate a Cover Photo and Profile Photo via Google's automated feeds? I see that you can add "images", but not much more than that. Do we have to manually upload cover photo/avatar info? If it turns out we have to, IMHO would be totally worth it even if time-consuming, but just trying to figure out the balance between automation vs manual factors.
Local Listings | | mirabile0 -
Google Local Listing
Q1a: How do I do off-page SEO for Google Local Listing?
Local Listings | | kevinbp
or
Q1b: Where can i find the resources to learn about off-page SEO for Google Local Listing? Q2: Is the off-page SEO for google Local Listing similar to off-page SEO for a website? In this case, I will have to create backlinks to my google+ business page? Cant seem to find the answers by googling. The results that come out are mostly on-page SEO to complete my profile for Google Local Listing0