Recent content by WilliamGMBE

That is an interesting point. Can see how that could be another possible reason.

Oh yes, agree. Our sample size here is small, but the data is very clear about it. We also see that some categories search ranking increased a lot when added, while some new categories added did make that much of the difference. Like the graph below in the experiment, on phase 2 we added...

Thank you to everyone who responded here and reached out to volunteer. We have not finished the study, you can find it here: Category Dilution

Wanted to share a study we did about category dilution. A common question we had from our customers is whether adding categories hurt my current ranking, or will adding new categories bring more traffic? We did a study, you can find it here: Category Dilution Study We have included the raw...

Thank you @joy Thank you @JoyHawkins . Didn't know about this before :) .

Thank you for sharing this. Interesting to know. What do you mean by 'Google’s AI-powered Local Pack'? Is this the data that shows when we search on AI Mode?

@jsinteractive Curious to learn how you use Comet for optimization? Do you use it regularly for your GMB work?

Thank you for reaching out. This is great :)

Not sure if everyone has noticed this, but thought will share. Recently we have been seeing 'Service Establishment' showing up as a 'category' that Google Maps adds for Service Area Businesses. This is not something the business owner adds, but something added by default for service area...

We are trying to run a very detailed experiment to see if category dilution(more categories-reduction in ranking) is a real thing or not. Many companies (and people) swears it is a real thing, while many experiment shows the opposite. So for this purpose we are trying to run a very detailed...

I think I am wrong here. With AI mode, they are launching one after the other and not using the same experience for every language: https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/08/googles-ai-mode-adds-5-new-languages-including-hindi-japanese-and-korean/

Interesting. Ya, seems like it. I tried putting the url parameter hl=fr-CA for French Canadian and got the message below. I am guessing though since AI uses memory for languages, maybe it will respond in French after some usages. That is the approach other LLM's seems to be using.

Great analysis. Didnt know there was so many types of AI Overviews for local. Ya, search behavior is evolving fast. Have you tried agentic mode on ChatGPT? I find myself using agentic mode in ChatGPT a lot for deep local search. Like for example, planning to get together for Thankgiving...

'AI Mode' launched in Canada recently. You should be getting it unless you are in a Google Workspace account. :)

Google Maps ranking prioritizes businesses that are open over once that are closed. In your case since you are 24 hours business, during working hours you have more competition and that could be why you are ranking lower. So, to showcase, these are the business that showed up for me when I...