GMB Account Fallen Off Rankings in past 24 hours
-
My map pack presence has fallen off the face of the earth over the last 24 hours. My location The Escape Game Chicago was top 3 yesterday for 'escape room chicago' and now they only show up when searching for the exact brand name.
What's weirder is I still rank #1 organically for that keyword.I have looked through the account, nothing seems to be totally amiss. Google has not notified me of any issues or penalties. I have no clue what happened.Can anyone point me in the right direction or provide some insight as to how I can recover my ranking?
-
Thank you for bringing your question to the forum, Daniel. Likely, what you will need to do is a full competitive audit (for which you can find some guidance here: https://moz.com/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit) to discover why your business is being outranked by a competitor. My glance at this here in the forum can't replace an audit, but I will take a look and jot down some notes about what I see.
1. You mention that you were previously in the 3 pack for "escape room Chicago" but on March 10, you dropped. Looking from my location on the West Coast on March 16, I see you are at position #10 in Google's local finder (the mapped results you see when you click on the 3-pack for more info). So, you haven't disappeared altogether, but you have definitely fallen at least 7 spots since you last enjoyed your 3 pack ranking. When you search from your location at the place of business, what position are you seeing yourself in today?
2. Your review count is many times greater than that of any competitor, with the exception of Fox in a Box also having over 1,000 reviews. You currently have 1,399 reviews vs. the top competitor for this search term, Escape House, which has 95. Pardon the frank question, but are you certain you haven't done anything to violate Google's review guidelines in a way that might have prejudiced them against your listing? This would include incentivizing reviews in any way for your business, having employees review your business, etc. The advantage should be to you here, in your far greater number of reviews, but when the total number of reviews is so much greater than most of the rest of the field, it's important to be sure guidelines are being adhered to.
3. Your overall star rating of 4.9 is .1 greater than Escape House's 4.8. Advantage to you.
4. Your categories are the same as your top competitor's. No difference there.
5. Your competitor has written Google posts in the past. None are showing for you. Advantage to them.
6. You are doing a much better job responding to reviews than your top competitor is. Advantage to you.
7. What is going on with your business being located next door to two other escape businesses? Do you have a relationship with Escape House or Safe House? What is the scenario here?
8. In terms of business names, the name on your street signage as seen via Google Street View does not match what you have called your business in your GMB listing. Your street sign reads: The Escape Game. Your GMB listing is titled: The Escape Game Chicago. Adding extra keywords to your listing title is considered spam. Meanwhile, Escape House does not have extra keywords in their name. Technically, because Google's algorithm is still rewarding business name spammers, the advantage in this could be to you, but on the other hand, it could be possible that your business name was reported to Google and they are docking you for this.
9. The MozCast reported a bit of heavy weather on March 9th which could have included a shakeup in your pack. Local Rank Flux also reported a "hot" day on the 9th (see https://www.localsearchforum.com/threads/sudden-gmb-ranking-drop-for-all-keywords.55923/).
So, these are some things I'm seeing at a glance. I would recommend that you follow through with a complete audit between yourself and the business ranking #1. And those questions regarding your reviews, your business name, and the geographic scenario regarding your business and the 2 competitors being next door to one another deserve a closer look. You aren't being impacted by the Possum filter, from what I can see, because you are present on the map despite your close proximity to the two other competitors, but you are in a densely competitive area, for sure.
Please, feel free to come back with answer to the questions I've asked or with further questions of your own.
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
-
Bingplaces.com wanting access to google account
Hello, we have a google my business account. On bingplaces.com it is saying they would like access to our google account. Is that normal for bing to share access with the google my business account? Thanks.
Local Listings | | MeritInsuranceGroup0 -
GMB for Auto Dealers - New Rules
Hello, I would love to confirm if I am interpreting the auto dealer rules for GMB correctly. My understanding is that two car franchises / brands (e.g. Ford & Chrysler) can share the same physical location, but have their own GMB listing? "New car dealerships are eligible for multiple listings. You can have one listing for your dealership and one listing for each brand you sell of new cars." https://support.google.com/business/answer/9074301?hl=en&ref_topic=9074323 Thank you!
Local Listings | | P.Myers0 -
Ranking Go Down
Hello My website www.prismpharmamachinery.com Ranking Down last from 5 to 6 month, Before It was Up, goes down By 5 to 6 pages. Any Expert can help for this query, Then Please reply. Thanking you in advance,
Local Listings | | Sanjayth0 -
Is there any data about how user interact with the local 7 pack listing, do they scroll past it or use it like a normal SERP ?
Does any one have any data about how users interact with the local 7 pack listings in regards to position to CTR ratios, do everyday users tend to scroll past it to the normal SERPs as they might do with adwords ads (as the local pack is formatted slightly different to normal SERPs) ? bMvtUSe.png
Local Listings | | Sam-P0 -
Why I'm I ranking so low on Google Maps
About 3 months I started a website (www.guyetteroofing.com) for my roofing business in Montgomery, Alabama. The site is still a work in progress, however, because the competition doesn't really market via internet it was fairly easy to rank on Google Maps. Within 1 month the business was letter "A" in Google Maps. About 3 three weeks ago my ranking was dropped considerably, not showing up at all in letters A through G. The business is still indexed in Google Maps, but only represented by a small red dot. My website is still ranking pretty high for "roofers in Montgomery", but my position on Google Maps has all but disappeared. I have no idea what I've done to be rank so low on Google Maps but still have a solid position on regular Google Search. I've checked my citations and my NAPs, there are a few inconsistencies but nothing major. How can I rank so far below my competition if I have twice as many citations, an actual website, and a Google Plus page?
Local Listings | | billyguyette0 -
Do Local PPC Ads Get Ranked Higher Even Though the User Doesn't Specify Search Location
See the attached image.I searched for a drug called "Actos". The first Google Adwords result was a result specific to "Arkansas" which is odd because I didn't specify that I was in Arkansas. I understand that Google makes that recommendation because Google knows I'm in Arkansas. The resulting landing page has NOTHING to do with Arkansas and you can view it here: http://bladdercancerlawsuit.org/actos-bladder-cancer/My question is this: Does the fact that the AD has the name of the user's state (Arkansas) make the "click" less expensive or higher ranking or both? Is this known by Adword specialist community? I'm wondering because this is an expensive keyword and hard to guarantee top position for. If this is a technique we should incorporate, I'd love to do it. U1dfiiE
Local Listings | | iprov0 -
Tips for attributing specific rises in rank to increases in traffic
I'm curious how people attribute a rise or fall in a specific keyword to increases/decreased in traffic on a large website that ranks for a wide variety of keywords. I'm specifically interested tracking how small moves on the front page, especially the top positions and in competitive keywords affect (or don't affect) traffic/CTR. I'd like to be able to attribute specific changes in rank to their impact on traffic. I'm thinking about this more for internal testing and optimization rather than for reporting as a way to try to hone resources on what has the largest impact. Things I'd like to know more about: How to measure the difference in traffic/CTR for a term that moves from 2nd to 3rd position in SERPs. 3rd to 1st. 4th to 5th. 1st to 2nd. etc. etc. The same fluctuations, but in a local listing. The effect of moving above or below a local listing, or a listing with some other kind of extended result (sitelinks, news article, etc.) How to measure the impact of an appearance or disappearance of authorship on click through rate, especially for positions 2-5 in the SERPs. The same would go for a video snippet. Measuring changes resulting from any other type of change I'd love for as many people as possible to answer, with as specific or broad of an answer suits your experience and expertise. Feel free to answer only some of the questions, or provide related information. Links to articles, anecdotes, case studies, hunches, and hard numbers are all appreciated and welcomed. I look forward to hearing from people!
Local Listings | | Oren.0 -
Change in Google local ranking
So we have a WA construction client that we're working on doing some local SEO stuff. This month all the keywords that we're tracking but one is on the first page. It's easy to say "yay, we're so damn good at what we do", but it seems like there must have been a shift in the way google is ranking local results. Anyone else experiencing this??
Local Listings | | SoleGraphics0