Knowledge Panel Removed - Possible change in algo?

Nikos · Dec 13, 2017

Hello all,

My agency lost its knowledge graph for exact match branded search terms.

What actually happened is that we now show up only for "[agency] + city" or "[agency] + country". Therefore, we lost our knowledge panel for branded search terms (which we had for more than 6 years).

I think this has to be algorithmic change. GMB listing and overall site health are ok. In addition, the site is ranking on Google Maps for related search terms.

Anyone having the same experience? Any ideas how to gain back the knowledge graph?

Much appreciated.

Thank you.

Tim Colling · Dec 13, 2017

I am seeing the same thing for my agency as well as a lot of other SEO and web design agencies.

saburnsjax · Dec 13, 2017

I noticed it too, thought it was weird, especially when logged into Chrome where Google clearly ?knows? what I am expecting to see so to speak. Can force the knowledge graph to appear by leaving off a word of the brand name or by misspelling it.

Tim Colling · Dec 13, 2017

saburnsjax said:
...Can force the knowledge graph to appear by leaving off a word of the brand name or by misspelling it.

Not so for mine.

A Servant's Heart Web Design and Marketing - full name - does not show KG
A Servant's Heart Marketing - partial name - does not show KG
A Servant's Heart Web Design and Marketing Oceanside - DOES show KG

Nikos · Dec 14, 2017

Tim Colling said:
Not so for mine.

A Servant's Heart Web Design and Marketing - full name - does not show KG
A Servant's Heart Marketing - partial name - does not show KG
A Servant's Heart Web Design and Marketing Oceanside - DOES show KG

Yes! That's exactly what's happening with all agencies in my city.

Could it be an update/bug?

Let's see what others have noticed too.

Eric Rohrback · Dec 14, 2017

I'm seeing it pop up for [name + city], but not [name]

JoyHawkins · Dec 14, 2017

I tried it for a few agencies and get mixed results.

Imprezzio Marketing - did see it
Whitespark - did not see it
Powered by Search - did not see it
SEO by the Sea - did not see it
Techwyse - did see it
Search Kings - did see it

My assumption is that it might have to do with user intent and how much of an authority these brands have "locally" vs "nationally"

I started my agency in April of this year and I've never had a KP for just "sterling sky inc" or "sterling sky" but have always had one when you add the city. That's what I would expect.

Nikos · Dec 15, 2017

I do get mixed results too.

There are many brand names which still get a KP and many others which get it only if I append the city name.

I'm not sure if the authority is the reason. Popular businesses have lost their KP.

FriarTuck00 · Dec 19, 2017

I did a quick search of a few in our area. We still have our KP for a brand search. Results were about 50/50 for other agencies in our area here.

JoyHawkins · Dec 19, 2017

This might be related since Google did confirm here that they made a change to their knowledge panels: https://www.blog.google/products/search/improving-search-and-discovery-google/

JC Chouinard · Jan 11, 2018

Arrgghhh! Happy to know I am not alone. I reached Google Local Help center, and the only help I could have was that I should optimize my account. No information about algorithm change.

Now my agency only come out in knowledge panel when I add [company name] + city, but some of my competitors come out only with their brand name.

To add to my pain, I found a knowledge panel from a company in France with a lower domain authority than me coming out. What is going on!?

Anybody found a solution to this problem yet?

Nikos · Jan 12, 2018

I still see the same pattern in my area:
half businesses retained their knowledge panel and the other half lost them and it is required to add city name or country name.

I definitely don't think it is an optimization issue. Very strong players in local search lost their branded knowledge graph.

JC Chouinard · Jan 12, 2018

Thanks for the quick reply, not the answer I was hoping for unfortunately, but still it is what it is.

vivekrpatel · Jan 15, 2018

I did it for popular blogs in Local SEO and I do get mixed results from India as well.

advicelocal.com/blog - get a KP

blog.biakelsey.com - lost a KP

blog.reachlocal.com - get a KP

brightlocal.com/blog - lost a KP

getfivestars.com/blog - lost a KP

moz.com/blog - get a KP

neilpatel.com/blog/ - lost a KP

searchenginejournal.com - lost a KP

searchengineland.com - get a KP

whitespark.ca/blog - lost a KP

Very popular and strong tools like brightlocal, getfivestars & whitespark lost their KP while popular blogs searchengineland, MOZ still have their KP.

Grupa TENSE · Feb 12, 2018

Hi,
we had the same problem in Poland, but 2 weeks ago we managed to solve it. We restored Google My Business to SERP thanks to changes in categories, namely thanks to removal of optional categories and choosing only one which is the closest to our company's core business. We described this case on our blog, also in English: https://www.grupa-tense.pl/pozycjon...google-my-business-listing-weve-got-solution/. Try this and let us know whether this proved to be effective in your case, too. Good luck!

JC Chouinard · Feb 13, 2018

I tried everything everybody told me and none of it worked. Your solution did, many thanks!

Nikos · Feb 14, 2018

Surprisingly, your fix worked!

I need to test it with other locations too.

It is unacceptable for Google to raise such a penalty for using many categories. There are many businesses which they do not fall into one single category.

Thank you.

bhartzer · Feb 20, 2018

Just an update on this... I logged into my GMB account and looked at the categories. Looks like I had about 5 selected. I removed all but ONE category, and once it was approved (which it took about 3-5 mins to get approved), my KP is now back for my business name.

FriarTuck00 · Feb 20, 2018

I think sometimes we "over categorize" businesses in order to try and make sure we get as much visibility as possible. In the end, it has the reverse effect. Glad you are visible again!

Grupa TENSE · Feb 20, 2018

We are glad that we could help all of you

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