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In the past Google management has come right out and said the description is not a ranking factor but a new post from Phil Rozek questions whether that has changed with the Pigeon update?
I suspect not. I also suspect these support emails are from outsourced 3rd party support. They just do not read like carefully scripted Google support emails do.
You need to click over to read both support emails but here is just one small part.
"The system actually uses this section when it?s looking for potential search terms to trigger your page. It?s always a good idea to add relevant phrases. Including search terms and even location terms gives you a much better chance to show for these specific phrases."
Head over to Phil's to read the rest!
I'm highly skeptical of the advice in these emails due to the tone and content. Sounds like someone with SEO background that 'thinks' they know how this works - like maybe a it's 3rd party outsourced marketing agency filling a support role? (More below.)
Anyone who's taken my training or even just reads all my posts here, knows about the ranking penalty that can come from keyword or geo stuffing description. Not that they were suggesting "stuffing" per se, but just wanted to add that so anyone reading this that is not very experienced doesn't just run out and add a bunch of crap to their description that could cause negative consequences.
My Comment at Phil's:
"In the past Google management has come right out and said the description is not a ranking factor. Wonder if this has changed with Pigeon?
But I can?t make sense of this update. It?s supposed to be more about traditional organic factors, but check Chesapeake Account. (Purposely low competition, low optimized niche I was researching to try to reverse engineer the algo.
The A and B spots. No site, which shoots the organic theory.
Both unclaimed G+ L listings too, so no descriptions.
Given the info above though I?m going to check another market looking at descriptions to see if there may be something to this."
Then later I thought some more and said:
"Meant to say I've seen a few questionable comments come from that Ann Arbor group, so I wonder if that's new outsourced support or something possibly?"
For one thing support does not usually go out of there way to give ranking tips. Or ANY tips unless you have something set wrong. And they aren't supposed to talk about ranking.
For another regular support does not keep mentioning where they are from or what department they work in. So this does seem like outsourced support to me.
And last as I said above the tone sounds like it's a marketing agency, tone does not sound at all like Google support. (I don't know that for sure and could be wrong, just my perception.)
What do you think???
Do you think descriptions are now a ranking factor?
Anyone want to test?
Have you gotten other support emails that sound like ones at Phil's, that say they are from Ann Arbor and give ranking tips or questionable advice???
<meta property="og:type" content="article"><meta property="og:title" content=""><meta property="og:description" content="In the past Google management has come right out and said the description is not a ranking factor...">
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I suspect not. I also suspect these support emails are from outsourced 3rd party support. They just do not read like carefully scripted Google support emails do.
You need to click over to read both support emails but here is just one small part.
"The system actually uses this section when it?s looking for potential search terms to trigger your page. It?s always a good idea to add relevant phrases. Including search terms and even location terms gives you a much better chance to show for these specific phrases."
Head over to Phil's to read the rest!
I'm highly skeptical of the advice in these emails due to the tone and content. Sounds like someone with SEO background that 'thinks' they know how this works - like maybe a it's 3rd party outsourced marketing agency filling a support role? (More below.)
Anyone who's taken my training or even just reads all my posts here, knows about the ranking penalty that can come from keyword or geo stuffing description. Not that they were suggesting "stuffing" per se, but just wanted to add that so anyone reading this that is not very experienced doesn't just run out and add a bunch of crap to their description that could cause negative consequences.
My Comment at Phil's:
"In the past Google management has come right out and said the description is not a ranking factor. Wonder if this has changed with Pigeon?
But I can?t make sense of this update. It?s supposed to be more about traditional organic factors, but check Chesapeake Account. (Purposely low competition, low optimized niche I was researching to try to reverse engineer the algo.
The A and B spots. No site, which shoots the organic theory.
Both unclaimed G+ L listings too, so no descriptions.
Given the info above though I?m going to check another market looking at descriptions to see if there may be something to this."
Then later I thought some more and said:
"Meant to say I've seen a few questionable comments come from that Ann Arbor group, so I wonder if that's new outsourced support or something possibly?"
For one thing support does not usually go out of there way to give ranking tips. Or ANY tips unless you have something set wrong. And they aren't supposed to talk about ranking.
For another regular support does not keep mentioning where they are from or what department they work in. So this does seem like outsourced support to me.
And last as I said above the tone sounds like it's a marketing agency, tone does not sound at all like Google support. (I don't know that for sure and could be wrong, just my perception.)
What do you think???
Do you think descriptions are now a ranking factor?
Anyone want to test?
Have you gotten other support emails that sound like ones at Phil's, that say they are from Ann Arbor and give ranking tips or questionable advice???
<meta property="og:type" content="article"><meta property="og:title" content=""><meta property="og:description" content="In the past Google management has come right out and said the description is not a ranking factor...">
<meta property="og:image" content="">
Every once and a while when there's a really spammy set of listings, i'll report them all-- but they almost always get denied, so I go back to beating them in other ways with reviews/citations/awesome on page SEO/etc. It's so easy to check too! Just hit street view, and if it doesn't have a sign out front and looks like a house, I think it's safe to assume they don't conduct business there!
