Another Google Local Ranking update?

[Harmony Huskinson]

Hello! Is anyone seeing any major fluctuations in traffic with whispers of this latest update? I know it's a smaller one, but I was surprised that BrightLocal's Local RankFlux has been at nonstandard levels for 5 days now. I am not seeing anything with my HVAC client, but their location pages only draw ~4K a month (hoping to improve upon this of course!).

Local RankFlux - BrightLocal

www.brightlocal.com

Google Web Search & Local Search Ranking Algorithm Updates Over Weekend

Starting around Friday, April 23rd or so, there seems to have been an unconfirmed Google Search ranking algorithm both on the web search results side and the local search results side. There is chatter in the SEO forums, coupled with the automated tracking tools picking up big changes, it does...

www.seroundtable.com

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi @harmony The Flux tool was above six yesterday! However, so far, I am not seeing any major flux with the businesses I work with.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah, same here. Nothing out of the norm.

 

[Lluc]

No noticeable traffic changes for our clients so far, in the travel industry.

However, I've checked Google Search Console, with a filter applied to show only URLS with the GMB utm and they are all pretty much the same as the screenshot below.

On Thursday 22nd of April 2021, the average position of those URLs increases drastically to settle at around average position 1.2 on Monday 26th of April. This is for all clients. I only have data until Thursday 29th of April.

Is anyone else seeing this?
Could this be related to how Google is tracking those URL's.?
Any ideas or comments?

 

[Lluc]

The Avge. Position for GMB urls that I'm looking into seem to be stable between avge. position 1.2 and 2.2.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah, I'm seeing a change in average position as well, but not as drastic as your example:

What's interesting though is that the change appears to be for branded terms, or terms that return a single local listing (knowledge panel). For example, these are all terms that contain a knowledge panel, and the change is all on desktop:

 

[Lluc]

Hi Joy,

I'm looking into the branded versus non-branded queries, thanks for pointing that out!
We are seeing a large increase in Avge. Position on the GSC properties of hotel chains, with at least 10 hotels (GMB listings).

What we are seeing now across all properties is that the Avg. Position is decreasing to the values previous to the 22nd of April and that Clicks and Impressions have seen a large increase. This change happened on the 1st of May. Below two screenshots where you can best see these changes.

 

[Harmony Huskinson]

Hi all, thanks for your answers! After looking at HVAC client's traffic in depth yesterday through Search Console, Local Falcon, and Analytics, I wasn't seeing any trends around the algorithm update either.

 

[StephanieNewton]

Hi everyone! Just a heads up that we have investigated this and found a suspected bug in the tool. We've created a thread on Twitter with a bit more info, here: . I'll also aim to post on here once this has been resolved and/or if any new learnings emerge.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Thanks so much for updating us Stephanie!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Thanks, Stephanie!

 

[Luke Hancock]

We seemingly have been steady with rankings across our franchise for the last week, thankfully. At least, I've had no phone calls from disgruntled franchisees, haha.

Thanks for the discussion.