Anyone Notice Major Decreases in Google Maps Traffic Recently?

[Jason]

Most of my clients typically see a pretty large amount of traffic from Google Maps. All clients have seen big (like 75%) decreases around the board in the last two months. All the clients are doing well everywhere else across the board.

I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing this too and if its from one of the recent algorithum updates or something else?

Thanks all!

Jason

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Jason,

When you say "Major Decreases in Google Maps Traffic Recently" how are you tracking traffic to know it comes from Google maps???

Are you saying their Google Map ranking dropped?

Or are you saying the regular local ranking in blended dropped?

Or ranking is the same and traffic just dropped? If so, again how are you tracking traffic? Are you basing your comment just on the analytics in the Places dash? Is that what you are referring to?

Can you be any more specific?

 

[Jason]

Hi Linda,

My drop in Google Maps traffic is based off of Google Analytics. None of my local or organic rankings have dropped. Some have actually increased. I don't think its a penalty or anything like that. My organic traffic and pretty much every other stat is up but I'm seeing big drops from Google Maps.

I'm just wondering if some of the new updates have affected Map traffic by being more difficult to find or is no longer being shown along with keyword phrases. I'm seeing decreased like 174 visits a month to 4 with no loss in rankings, and no losses anywhere else. Its really strange. I was just wondering if anyone else had seen anything similar.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Do you mean Google Analytics or Places Analytics? Cuz the Places Analytics are often borked.

Here is one recent thread.

Google + Local Analytics seem to be messed up AGAIN!

 

[Jason]

Google Analytics. I don't even look at Places Analytics anymore. They are a joke.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry if this is a dumb Q. I never use Google Analytics.

How are you tracking traffic to know it's maps traffic?

And again are you talking pure map search traffic or are you referring to it generically as maps traffic but you mean traffic from maps and/or G+ Local page and/or blended pack in regular search?

Just trying to figure out which of those traffic sources you are referring to and and trying to figure out how you are tracking that specific traffic source. Then I can maybe tell you if there was a recent update that would have had an impact.

 

[Jason]

I have custom reports set up in Google Analytics that separate all the major sources of local traffic, including Google Maps, Google Plus, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc.

Google Maps is separate from all other Google products. I use the "maps.google" to separate Google Map traffic coming from all Maps products. This has worked for years and this is first time I have seen a drop like this from Map traffic.

Thanks for all you help!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ahhh, thanks for clarifying. Would not think that much traffic comes directly from maps, so that's part of what threw me.

 

[Dave]

I just wonder if its because google set reviews off on their own.

Over a very long time I've never gotten much direct traffic from maps.google dot com. Never. My experience is that few smb's do get much traffic from there.

it might be that maps.google.com used to generate something like 1% of google traffic (when they were reporting it).

Jason: out of curiosity what percentage of google traffic or search traffic was your maps traffic.

If your overall google traffic is about the same it might be more a function of how google is routing traffic.

 

[stephen.perl]

Are your listings subjected to the local carousel? Many listings that appear in this may be subjected to an apparent decrease in traffic because clicking on the carousel results performs a branded search for the location. This means your local traffic will be cannibalized by branded-organic search traffic.