Business moved out of state, Seemed to be in a Jail

[OneBlessedDude]

I have a client that moved from one state to another about 1.5 years ago and we were able to migrate all the social media and gmb, the reviews etc.
The maps listing though is still sitting in no mans land page 2.5 - 6 on maps even though all citations etc are all matching.
They are currently ranked around 10 organically.
But maps is just wont budge no matter what we've thrown at it, even local info sites/embeds with real helpful content, local links and embeds etc.
They are #1 on Bing maps as of a month ago.
When you search for "main kw" and your on the page they are on like page 3 of maps their blip/market will show up, but their text name wont be by the marker/blip even though all other businesses have the name next to the marker.
So my question is,
Is there some sort of "new kid jail" or "kink in the hose" they put maps listings in when moved or new?

I've dont this once before like 4 years ago and I remember I was able to rank a maps to page 2 and wouldn't move till one morning it was sitting number 1 spot map pack, that took exaclty 9 months when light switch got flicked.

anyone else have any experience with this?
Thanks

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I feel your pain. Updating the address to a new state can be like starting a new listing in some ways. Glad to hear you got all the reviews and citations sorted out.

We'd be happy to troubleshoot for you if you are ok with posting the business details and the KW you are concerned with.

 

[OneBlessedDude]

Any specific time frame you have been experiencing lately for something like this situation?
Have you found it to be true about my "jail" theory?
Or is it just a sort of limited trust till time proves type of thing?

GreenWay Carpet Cleaning
1516 E TROPICANA Ave,
Ste 136,Las Vegas,NV 89119
(702) 460-0602
kw
carpet cleaning las vegas


Thanks Colan!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

A few things jump out at me after a quick and dirty analysis.

Some of the competitors that outrank you have a couple GMB categories that you do not currently use that are relevant and might be worth adding.

Here's an example.

The other thing that jumped out is that a bunch of the listings that outrank you are keyword stuffing or are just straight-up ineligible listings. I'd put some time putting together a list and reporting them.

The third thing is that the physical location of the business is outside of Las Vegas. This will make it challenging to rank for keyword + Las Vegas search terms since it's a super competitive market.

 

[OneBlessedDude]

Thanks Colan, I actually just consolidated the categories to carpet cleaning from a post I read on here lol hoping it would help.. I did it maybe 3 weeks ago?
From what i gathered though i could rank for broader terms but it might be more condensed/powerful if I just kept it carpet cleaning?

I'll go ahead and add the other categories per your recommendation.

Ya good point about the address, technically its actually still the city of Las Vegas, even though its in Paradise.. Paradise is just an "area" still in Las vegas city.

At this point its probably to late to try and switch everything over to a new address, Id rather just start up a whole new gmb?

Or could I just hide the adress and start saying customers dont come to the company office anymore, would that help?

I tried reporting listings in the past and got no where and or they came back in like a day.

Im gonna wait till it pops I guess and the listing gets closer to the top. Then I guess Ill have to hire your team to start whacking all the fake listings out as a last and final blow to the top.

 

[Scott Ludtke]

My experience in seeking advice from Top contributors in Maps & GMB forums with great success, is that when a business moves and has a new address, the best method is to close the existing location, and then create and verify the new location. Reviews, etc., can be migrated.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Im gonna wait till it pops I guess and the listing gets closer to the top.

I wouldn't wait. Sometimes removing ineligible listings can cause Google to re-shuffle the search results and this typically benefits the eligible listings.

Spam fighting is something you need to keep chipping away at when you are in a competitive spammy vertical. Build a spreadsheet and start tracking all the listings, what the violations are and how and when you reported them. Then you can follow-up and keep it organized.

 

[OneBlessedDude]

Anyone else have any input on this as time to get out of jail?

This GMB is still way out in la la land, even when using the cool Local Falcon its not even in the top16 while hovering right over the location.


Even though this isn't the bigger issue here, I tried tadle telling and got no where, had some great folks help out and we had super clear evidence and "Google reviewed and decided "leaving"it as it is "

 

[JoyHawkins]

@OneBlessedDude,

I wouldn't expect it to rank for carpet cleaning Las Vegas because it's not inside the city of Las Vegas as Colan pointed it out. You'll see that it does rank for "carpet cleaning" if you search from the zip code. See this case study for more on that.

I also found a duplicate that could cause you to be filtered because it's using your address and I'd suggest getting that removed so it doesn't cause you any issues. Google Maps

 

[OneBlessedDude]

@OneBlessedDude,

I wouldn't expect it to rank for carpet cleaning Las Vegas because it's not inside the city of Las Vegas as Colan pointed it out. You'll see that it does rank for "carpet cleaning" if you search from the zip code. See this case study for more on that.

I also found a duplicate that could cause you to be filtered because it's using your address and I'd suggest getting that removed so it doesn't cause you any issues. Google Maps

Thanks Joy! Got that listing removed instantly weeee!!

I dont understand how you found it though as it didn't have an address listed?

Great read.... so even though the business has a Las Vegas city address, because its in the nieghborhood of "paradise" its no good?

So... we need to:
1. Change the adress to one that fits within googs red highlighted map of "las vegas"
2. Switch adress on all citations

Is that correct?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I have lots of tricks for finding listings using the same address, but not ones I'm comfortable sharing publicly lol (I usually save stuff like this for my guide/training).

You might not need to change the location with all the changes that Google is rolling out currently for service area businesses unless it has a storefront and you don't plan on hiding the address. If it's a storefront, yes, I'd suggest moving.

If it's a home-based business, I'd suggest waiting a couple months to see what happens with this new Service Area Business rollout.

 

[OneBlessedDude]

lol your killing me..
ya for this set up it was made when it was cool to be near the "town center" as I thought of Las Vegas ( near the strip ) and the address is showing for the old skool thinking of having an actual office address added weight to ranking.

I could care less if the address is hidden or not, I think it does give some credibility to potential clients as most folks like seeing you are "established" with an actual office.
But other than that no foot traffic exists and its a waste of empty office.. and of course the $ to rent the office every month lol

This one is a monster and would be impossible to totally clean up the citations/switch them to a new address.
But if it makes it rank, then so be it.

So I guess I could hide the adress for now and see if that boosts it?

What would you do as of right now it is a "brick n mortor"

 

[JoyHawkins]

the address is showing for the old skool thinking of having an actual office address added weight to ranking.

I haven't seen any evidence in recent years that would make me think that an address showing has any impact on ranking.

So I guess I could hide the address for now and see if that boosts it?

I wouldn't expect anything to be boosted by hiding the address. It's just policy - if you don't hide it and customers don't show up at the location, you might have someone at Google tell you to hide it to be compliant.

 

[OneBlessedDude]

ok we got trigger happy and moved this to a true Las Vegas location, got it verified via snail mail pin. And now its updated the address but still showing "a company located in Paradise Nevada."

Does that usually take some time to update or is there some glitch?

 

[Tim Colling]

It could take a little time. It shouldn't be any more than a day or so, at least in my experience.

 

[JoyHawkins]

The address currently associated with the listing is the same one as before - not the one listed as the address in the footer of the website. I have a strong feeling this is related to the recent changes Google rolled out for SABs which is why I suggested holding off making any changes. I'd suggest you reach out to GMB support and ask them why Google isn't updating the location of the listing.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

The one thing that sticks out to me is that using LocalFalcon he still wasn't ranking very well right on top of his location. It sounds like there is an issue holding him back. Not just poor ranking.

I believe you said it's been 1.5 years since you moved the listing, correct? GMB does have a threshold time for new businesses so if what Colan says is true about moved listings being treated as new listings, I'm not overly surprised you're still not ranking well right on top of your location. Google really punishes new businesses for awhile. Although, I am still slightly surprised. You should be ranking in the top 5 by now or something. Fro what I've seen 1.5 years is really the max to have an issue like this because of a "new listing" designation. Something is fishy here.

Isn't Google's policy currently to move the business and not shut down the listing and start a new one? If it's not, maybe that's the problem.

 

[JoyHawkins]

@JoshuaMackens the LocalFalcon is having issues currently with some queries containing city-names in them so if it's returning no results it's probably wrong. They are actually ranking first now if you search from their new zip code.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

@JoshuaMackens the LocalFalcon is having issues currently with some queries containing city-names in them so if it's returning no results it's probably wrong. They are actually ranking first now if you search from their new zip code.

Awesome! But I guess we won't be able to troubleshoot the issue with the old location? That piqued my interest.

 

[OneBlessedDude]

I love you guys.. and gals!

To clarify just before I switched it I did search for carpet cleaning Paradise and it did rank number 1. But for ccLasVegas it was still lost in outer space.

Also I exagerated a bit, it was actual 1 year and 3 months.

Its one of those things that was right in front of my nose this whole time I just never thought/realized it was treated as out of las vegas even thought it had a Las Vegas address.

So just like stated above by Colan and Joy, it just wasn't in the red highlighted google map of Las Vegas, thats what the big problem was.

Now if I could just get back that 18 months of office rent that I wasted lol

But yes look at that, showing up number 1 right after the switch for 89145!!!

Now to widen that number one result to the rest of the city!

Thanks again for all the help!