GMB listing not showing for local searches
-
Hi all, I've optimised an existing GMB listing that has been in place for over a year. The client is a yacht/boat broker and marine repair outfit based in Mallorca.
When I search for terms that they 'should' be ranking for on Google and on a Maps search, they are nowhere to be found, yet their listing does show when you type in their company name.
I've read lots of Local SEO guides and followed their advice but I'm not sure what I'm meant to do next?
-
Hi Bee,
So, yes, this definitely looks like Possum. When I search Google Maps for "Yacht Broker Port Adriano Spain" I see that there are numerous similar business in this location and that when I zoom in on the map, Marlin Marine Services does appear. So, a listing does exist for this business, but it simply isn't being judged by Google to be deserved of showing at a non-zoomed-in level. So, this brings us right back to my earlier comment regarding the need to do competitive research to discover the top competitor's strengths and your client's weaknesses so that you can create a plan for improvement. Hope this helps!
-
Hey thanks for your replies, excellent advice which I am following. The company is: Marlin Marine Services S.L. - any insight you can offer is appreciated.
-
Hi Bee!
Without looking at the actual listing, the community will only be able to offer some guesses. If you can share the website of the business, I'll gladly look more closely at it for you, but if that's not possible, it's okay.
The first thing I'd try to rule out here is the Possum filter. Find out if your client shares a dock, marina or building of any kind with a business in the same industry as itself. Even if the business is down the street, if there's another yacht-related company located in the same general area as your client, Google's Possum filter could be causing your client to be filtered out at the automatic zoom level of Google Maps.
If your client confirms that there are other yacht-related businesses at or near their address, here's how to see if Possum is impacting the business. Go to Google Maps and type in the core search term for which the business is trying to rank. Then, begin clicking on the zoom level to get more and more zoomed in. If your client appears on the Map at a zoomed in level, but does not appear at the normal zoom setting, then it's likely Possum.
If this experiment helps you determine that Possum is at play, and even if this experiment isn't conclusive that it's Possum, the task for you as the Local SEO on the job will be to do both an internal and a competitive audit. This will look like:
-
Ruling out for your own client anything problematic like guideline violations, spam, malware on the website, robots.txt issues, limiting business location, etc., while also documenting your finding about your client's complete online health (age of domain, on-page SEO, link profile, DA, PA, citation health, age of GMB listing, etc.). Do a full audit.
-
Then, take your client's numbers and statistics from your internal audit and set them side-by-side with the top-ranking competitor in the local pack for the search term. See what this top competitor's strengths are and compare them to your client's weaknesses to determine why Google is favoring their listing over your client's.
-
Finally, create a strategy to bring your client's numbers/stats up to the level of the top competitor, as best you can.
Again, if you can share the client's website, our community will gladly take a look, but if that's not feasible, what I've outlined here is the basic process that lies before you. Hope this helps!
-
-
I've seen fluctuations when updating accounts, where it will disappear or perform lower for a few days but it usually bounces back. How long has it been not showing up under terms you believe it should? Also have you tried a proxy service to mimic your location in order to check clean results. I use https://www.brightlocal.com/local-search-results-checker/
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
-
I want to remove my business from Google Local Listing Completely
I deleted my business from Google my business (GMB) but it's still showing on Google Local Listing. Kindly, tell me how can I removed completely. I need help?
Local Listings | | Sabar-din1 -
Do You Know What's Triggering Your Local Packs?
Hey To All My Local Pals, Here 🙂 Recently, I watched a totally fascinating LocalU video in which Mike Blumenthal introduced a hypothesis that there may be a way to analyze what, specifically, is triggering a specific local pack. Now, Mike is stating that correlation is not causation in explaining this, but basically what he starts talking about at around 4:40 in the video is that what you are seeing rank well in the local packs may be demonstrably caused by what you see ranking organically beneath the pack, or may be caused by totally different signals. Mike says, _"If you're seeing the top 10 results are all IYP industry sites, and there's a pack showing, and the highest local site is 24 or something in organic, it's unlikely that that's what's triggering the pack. And so then you want to look at third-party triggers and see if that's what's actually triggering the pack." _ Obviously, all of us who do Local are familiar with the idea that a tremendous variety of elements contribute to pack rankings, but I am particularly intrigued by the idea of looking at the organic result beneath a pack and determining that there is little or no correlation between them, and this then driving one to look elsewhere for contributing factors. In a recent response to another thread here on Q&A, I discussed some common local pack ranking failure causes when organic rank is high. What I'd love to see is whether, if you look at some of your clients' desired packs, can you tell if organic signals are driving them, or can you see that it's not organic signals driving the pack, as Mike suggests. What, in those cases, does appear to be driving the packs? I'd be so interested in a discussion on this. What do you see? What do you think of Mike's suggestions?
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis9 -
Why are my citations not showing up?
We're managing a website for a client and decided to use Yext to build citations. We've gone through and manually verified that they are live. Moz Local cannot find this website or the citations, nor could Ahrefs, or Majestic. Google has indexed 154 pages of the website, Bing has indexed 10. This dealer has two websites (I know that's a faux pas, it's by client request), so that they can "test" our website before giving up their old one. They're tied to the same NAP, but have different web addresses. We got permission to claim the listings for the website we sent live and put them up about two months ago. I can't figure out for the life of me why none of my tools will verify the existence of this website and the citations. I checked for a no index and no follow command in the HTML (which shouldn't be a problem because Google has indexed the site) and it was clean. The only thing I can think of is that the old site is getting credit for the citations even though we've listed a different website address. Can anyone verify this?
Local Listings | | jtaylormoon0 -
1800 number for google local
Hi A client with a local business has a 1800 number on their google plus page and most citations. How important is it to use the local number and not a 1800 one for google local? Should we change the phone number to the local number and update all listings? Or should we just continue with the 1800 number and stay consistent? I have added the local number as a second number on the google plus page.
Local Listings | | henya1 -
List of categories for Google Business for the UK
Does anyone have a compete list of the business categories for the UK Google Business listings? I have done a few searches on line and not uncovered anything up to date. Thanks in advance.
Local Listings | | highwayfive0 -
Google Local Search
I have a customer who is frustrated that Google local search seems to favor businesses that are closer to the center of the city. He wants to be on the local results area on the SERP with his (keyword + city, state). His website is optimized, Google+ is using the keywords, more reviews than his competition and his MOZ local rating is 88.. It seems the only problem is his business is on the edge of town(same zip code). Google fills the local search area with businesses that are "downtown". Is there a way to overcome this?
Local Listings | | seomn0 -
Google Places - Should my category choice be manual keywords or selected from default list
Hi All, I have a carpet cleaner hire business and am new to google places. I have been doing my listing for it but can't seem to work out whether I should choose one of the default choices in the categories and leave it as that (in my case it would be "carpet cleaning services" or should I manually type some keywords as well as this ? So for instance, I choose the default - carpet cleaning services but also manually type in "carpet cleaner hire" , floor scrubber hire etc etc as other categories Any advice or if someone could point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. thanks Pete
Local Listings | | PeteC121 -
Competitor with 4 listings at same address
Hi there. I went to www.google.it and did a search for "Scuola di inglese a Miami" (English school in Miami) The result I got was that one Company (Kaplan International) ranked with several listings at the same address and with different languages. I read several time that you are only allowed to have one listing pr address. How is this possible? Will they eventually get merged or penalized? Best regards maps?q=scuola+di+inglese+a+miami&ie=UTF-8&ei=psJ0U5DFAcnXOdbIgNgG&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ
Local Listings | | E_F0