Do descriptions ever actually affect Apple rankings?

[Annika Neudecker]

I had this question come up recently in regards to Apple Business Connect. A company wanted to optimize their description on ABC to include lots of keywords in hopes of helping them rank better. I know that on GBP, keywords in description are not a ranking factor, and my understanding is that this is generally true across most local listings sites. Is anyone aware of if keywords in descriptions actually affect ABC rankings, or was this person incorrect? Is having a description at all on ABC a factor, or is the presence of a description irrelevant to the listing rank?

 

[ElizabethRule]

I don't have any evidence to say if it does or does not, it is extremely hard to test what impacts rankings in Apple Maps as they do not allow UTMs in the website field so tracking in GA4 is hard. I doubt Apple would make it that easy to game rankings, but that said you should try it out and see if it works!

You can track Apple traffic in GA4 by "using a different URL than you use anywhere else but that still opens the location page information. You'd want to make it a URL that has a canonical tag to the real URL." as @JoyHawkins recommends in this thread

If you give it a go make sure to come back here and let us know if it works!