I was wondering if you have heard about any Google Local algorithm changes. We have about 200 franchise locations. Some of our locations have dropped significantly over the past few weeks. Locations that were showing up in the 1-3 positions are now no longer showing on the first page. This is for very relevant phrases for our main line of business (which is also in our business name)... ‘Phrase, CITY NAME’. These locations have plenty of positive Google reviews. We would typically rank well for a phrase like that based on our relevance.
I did some brainstorming. Do you think any of these could have any impact?
- Google is all about things looking and feeling natural including link building, etc. We have used Yext which made a lot of changes across the web to fix addresses, etc. Do you think Google may be seeing this as unnatural? Too many changes at to many sites in to short a period of time?
- Along those same lines, do you think Google may be penalizing some of our franchise pages for being to ‘perfect’? It would be ‘natural’ for addresses to have some difference across the web and a bit unnatural to have them all match so perfectly.
- I know that Google has always stated the business name should be listed in Google Local the way it is listed to the general public. Things such as “Business Name Boston” should be listed as “Business Name”. Each of our franchise locations is named in house to reflect their geo location..... "Business Name Boston", "Business Name St. Louis". Many of our competitors also use the practice of attaching geo terms as well. Do you think we may be getting hit with a penalty now even though we have listed things on Google with the Geo term for years.... and is how WE refer to each location? Is it possible that by working with Yext, we drew attention to this practice? Should we remove our local listings geo term on Google Local? How about across the web?
- We are in a business that does not require customers to come to our location. Some of our locations have not suppressed the address in their local listings while others have. Many of our competitors have not. Do you think this could play into it?
- Some of our locations that are not showing in Local have good organic results. Have you heard anything about Google dropping Local if they show in organic?
- I know Google has been looking at social media more and more and I believe they will continue to do so. If our local pages have no social presence, could this adversely affect things? (I think this is probably not the case…. but wanted to throw it out there)
- I have noticed that in some cases where Local has dropped, we have multiple offices in that metro area. Is it possible that this could affect things?
- Have you heard of any Local algorithm changes? I know they are releasing a new dashboard sporadically, could this be in conjunction with a larger Local algorithm change?
- Our CMS tool does not allow us to change Title/Meta per page (I know... terrible!!). So every page has the same title and same meta description. (We are changing our CMS system! Can't wait!). Could this play into it?
Thanks for any feedback!
