Are SABs at a significant disadvantage in the map pack?

[ScottMA]

I have run a location-based education company for the last eight years, and we've had great success being in the map pack. We are starting a separate company in a similar industry (in-home tutoring), and I'm trying to figure out the best way of structuring the company based on the need for map pack results.

We could obviously do a service area business, but are SABs at a significant disadvantage when it comes to map pack results? The other option is to lease actual space and staff it, but that of course comes with more significant cost and complexity. I'm convinced of the need to be in the map pack, though, so we are making some of these business decisions based on anticipated SEO needs.

Just so I'm clear, this company will provide in-person, in-home tutoring in a defined service area using actual on-the-ground tutors. The only question is whether we should have a staffed office and location-specific GBP or be a service area business with an "office" address that is verified but hidden.

Thanks in advance.

 

[JS Girard]

Right now, new profiles seem to have the opposite problem: hiding the address often has a clear, negative effect on ranking.

 

[ScottMA]

That's a good point. I saw the article on Sterling Sky talking about this (Does Hiding Your Address Impact your Google Business Profile Ranking? - Sterling Sky Inc). Do you think we could rank a map pack hierarchy as follows?

1. Location-based, storefront businesses with addresses shown
2. Service area businesses without address hidden
3. Service area businesses with address hidden

I'm wondering if the above is currently accurate, and I also wonder where a hybrid business would fit in.

Thanks for the response.

 

[mattstephenskc]

I hope you get a competent (recent data-validated) response. It’s a vital question with significant implications. Google should evaluate and treat hybrid SABs differently than strict B&M storefront businesses. But do they?

It would be wholly unfair for them to prioritize strict B&M businesses over businesses with a central office that serve a wide geographic territory. They should be able to get this right without too much trouble.

 

[JS Girard]

I hope you get a competent (recent data-validated) response. It’s a vital question with significant implications. Google should evaluate and treat hybrid SABs differently than strict B&M storefront businesses. But do they?

Sterling sky's case study is here: Does Hiding Your Address Impact your Google Business Profile Ranking? - Sterling Sky Inc

I can personally say we've had close to a dozen cases that had everything much better than the competition and would not even show anywhere in the result until we displayed the address, at which point they instantly landed in the threepack.

It's not consistent at all (plenty of SABs still manage to rank), but it happens often enough that I consider it as a potential factor, especially for recent profiles.

 

[mattstephenskc]

Sterling sky's case study is here: Does Hiding Your Address Impact your Google Business Profile Ranking? - Sterling Sky Inc

I can personally say we've had close to a dozen cases that had everything much better than the competition and would not even show anywhere in the result until we displayed the address, at which point they instantly landed in the threepack.

It's not consistent at all (plenty of SABs still manage to rank), but it happens often enough that I consider it as a potential factor, especially for recent profiles.

If showing the office address is correlated with local pack/map visibility, how much does the proximity of that address to the searcher (or the explicit location) influence visibility? If I run a centralized metro office with contractors or practitioners who serve a geographic area within a 20-mile-radius, am I going to get beaten out in the local pack for a search taking place 15 miles from our office by a competitor whose office is, say, 3 miles from the searcher?

I.e., does Google favor local service businesses with more B&M storefronts?

 

[JS Girard]

My theory is as follow:

• Before this started, Google would only ever demote SABs where the overwhelming majority of GBPs in the industry(this is important!) were showing adress
  • A good example we had trouble ranking was a SAB-only massage therapist
• The new situation is that some SABs (as I said, this is rather inconsistent) are now demoted if the overwhelming majority of GBPs in the query result(not the same thing!) are showing address.
  • Because overall, a lot more GBPs are showing address (because of the HUGE amount of gogle-created profiles), this now affects a great many more profiles.

I believe this is not intended behavior because:

• It is highly inconsistent, seeming to affect mostly recent profiles
  • There may be a link to Mike Blumenthal's theory of a campaign on Google's part to re-verify all SABs, but correlation is not causation etc. etc.
• Objectively, there is no good justification for it
• Google has been insistent on this point over the years
• This is actually a fairly recent development, it only started happening at this scale about a year and a half ago

 

[mattstephenskc]

Based on the article you linked to (thank you), merely showing a SABs office address increases its local search visibility, assuming the search is directed to the business’s geo service area. But what, if any, effect does the proximity of the business address to the search location have on local pack SERPs?

Also, is there a difference between “hiding” an address and leaving it blank in your account settings?

 

[JS Girard]

Based on the article you linked to (thank you), merely showing a SABs office address increases its local search visibility, assuming the search is directed to the business’s geo service area. But what, if any, effect does the proximity of the business address to the search location have on local pack SERPs?

Also, is there a difference between “hiding” an address and leaving it blank in your account settings?

This gets into territory I'm not nearly as knowledgeable. The distance to the hidden address was always a factor. That's why we get the SAB move bug, where SABs are ranking for the wrong hidden address. How it affects these cases specifically is beyond my remit for reasons beyond the scope of this post.

I know the recent system lets you kind of create GBPs with the address hidden from the start (though you still have to provide one), but I'm not very clear what, if any difference that actually makes. It could be the differentiating factor, but my coworkers can't be arsed to track that info so I cannot tell (I don't do verifications, my role comes later only).

 

[mattstephenskc]

This gets into territory I'm not nearly as knowledgeable. The distance to the hidden address was always a factor. That's why we get the SAB move bug, where SABs are ranking for the wrong hidden address. How it affects these cases specifically is beyond my remit for reasons beyond the scope of this post.

I know the recent system lets you kind of create GBPs with the address hidden from the start (though you still have to provide one), but I'm not very clear what, if any difference that actually makes. It could be the differentiating factor, but my coworkers can't be arsed to track that info so I cannot tell (I don't do verifications, my role comes later only).

Darren's article argues that one's business address (whether hidden or shown) definitely affects local pack visibility. For starters, he states:

Depending on their competition and optimization, most businesses can expect to rank in about a 1-5 mile radius around that proximity.

Then he says:

You might assume that Google’s going to use the service areas that you’ve set on your Profile. That would make sense, right? Well, sadly, service areas have no impact on rankings at all. . . . Your rankings will still be defined by that little 1-5 mile circle around your business.

In other words, the service area you define in your GBP settings has no bearing on your search visibility in said service area. All that matters is your business address. Awesome.

 

[JS Girard]

In other words, the service area you define in your GBP settings has no bearing on your search visibility in said service area. All that matters is your business address. Awesome.

And we've had evidence as of late that for some profile, merely hiding the address causes MAJOR ranking falls. I can't stress enough that right now there absolutely are profiles out there that this happens to no matter what Google may pretend on this matter.

 

[bdlowery]

SABs don't have a disadvantage. Google will always fall back to using the address you verified with to rank your business.

If you display a different address on your profile than the one you originally verified back when you setup the GBP, Google will use the displayed address to rank. If you hide the displayed address Google will go back to using the address you used to verified for ranking.

The Sterling Sky article is good, but that's one piece of info they didn't take into account.