Drop in local rankings

[Andy T Shirtworks UK]

Hi,
We have always ranked number 1 or 2 for a phrase on Google local, but when I search for the same phrase in the area we are now 7. We still appear on the map section. We have 2 physical locations in the same city. If you add the city to the search we are number 1. It appears we are being penalised when you perform a local search in the area but not on a national level. I have performed the search in various locations and on various computes with a cleared cache and not signed in.
We had a bad review on google places recently which we suspect is false and done by a competitor. In response we asked our customers to write a few reviews, one of these came from another country, would these 2 reviews have any effect on what has happened to our site? Our site is for local and a national market. Any ideas would be much appreciated
Andy

 

[Cam]

Re: drop in local rankings

It's probably Google queuing up to screw the local businesses in the UK and replace their local organic rankings with low quality directory listing like what is happening here where my business is located.

 

[Andy T Shirtworks UK]

Re: drop in local rankings

Hi I don't think that is the case as all our competitors both local and nationally are ranking above us

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: drop in local rankings

Hi Andy and welcome!

It's hard to guess with such general info since there are so many potential factors at play.

If you care to share the exact search phrase and links to both Place pages I can move this down to the help forum where we can dig in and give you a more informed answer.

 

[Andy T Shirtworks UK]

Re: drop in local rankings

Hi Linda,

Thanks for the reply

The phrase is T-shirt printing and we have 3 google pages under our name 2 in Oxford and one in London.

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: drop in local rankings

Ok I looked at all 3 and see a bunch of different issues but no time to go into all of them and your 1st post was not specific enough to narrow it down. So I'm going to have to make some assumptions but wanted confirmation/clarification on a couple things before I continue.

Are you saying all 3 dropped at same time? Or is there one in particular you are talking about/concerned about?

Looks to me like Ferry Mills is corp? Do you also have a store there? Do you get or even want walk-in traffic there? Therefore is this one even a top priority?

Looks to me like Cowley is your main store, is that right? Is that the main one you are concerned about ranking on? Because it ranks for me, but I'm searching from US.

London store does not seem to rank at all. Did it at one time and then it dropped? Or is it newer or???

For benefit of my carpal I'm linking to them now, so I don't have to switch to G UK again and dig around to find them all. http://goo.gl/maps/so8Dm

Please fill in the blanks above and confirm some things I assumed and then I can give you some more educated feedback. Just don't want to waste time on assumptions and maybe bark up the wrong tree.

 

[Andy T Shirtworks UK]

Re: drop in local rankings

Ok I looked at all 3 and see a bunch of different issues but no time to go into all of them and your 1st post was not specific enough to narrow it down. So I'm going to have to make some assumptions but wanted confirmation/clarification on a couple things before I continue.

Are you saying all 3 dropped at same time? Or is there one in particular you are talking about/concerned about?
All 3 are connected to our website, it's not about the maps as we are on them but if you search in Oxford for T-shirt printing we don't feature anymore in the organic list until page 7, which is the same place we get if we search from a location outside the area. Even though we have a local map listing Google seams to think that we are not in Oxford when it comes to organic searches in Oxford. we are number 1 for Ethical T-Shirt printers in Oxford and also outside the area.

Looks to me like Ferry Mills is corp? Do you also have a store there? Do you get or even want walk-in traffic there? Therefore is this one even a top priority? Ferry Mills is our workshops and larger customers do come there too, but more of a B2B where as the shop is B2C.

Looks to me like Cowley is your main store, is that right? Is that the main one you are concerned about ranking on? Because it ranks for me, but I'm searching from US. It ranks on the maps for Google places but our website is not ranking in organic searches. Its as if Goolge has disregarded our website and business as being Oxford

London store does not seem to rank at all. Did it at one time and then it dropped? Or is it newer or??? The London office was inside another workshop and we are going to close that location. Since yesterday I have seen that we might have been the victim of spamming, possible by a competitor? If you search local world Shirtworks we have listings in towns across the country. Would this have pulled down Oxford with it?

For benefit of my carpal I'm linking to them now, so I don't have to switch to G UK again and dig around to find them all. http://goo.gl/maps/so8Dm

Please fill in the blanks above and confirm some things I assumed and then I can give you some more educated feedback. Just don't want to waste time on assumptions and maybe bark up the wrong tree.

Please let me know if you need anything else.

Thank you again

Andy

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: drop in local rankings

OK thanks for clarifying. I thought your primary concern was ranking in the local blended results, which is the main thing I focus on and the part I spent time researching.

Not sure about the national organic other than the fact that it's going to be easier to rank in a city with 20 competitors than it would be in a country with 1,000 or the world with 10,000. (Just making up numbers.)

Maybe someone else has some ideas.

 

[Andy T Shirtworks UK]

Re: drop in local rankings

Hi Linda,

It's not about national search but what happens in local results. As you know Google gives preference to business that are local when you search in a city. We are in the city and not being shown other that in the map section of the search. If you do a search in any city for t-shirt printers you will get 1 or 2 national business and the rest made up of local business's, we should be one of those business when you search in Oxford.

When you say local do you mean that you just specialise in the local maps rather than the local organic results?

Andy

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: drop in local rankings

"When you say local do you mean that you just specialise in the local maps rather than the local organic results?"

No I specialize in local, either/or/both. But it started sounding like you were talking national results.

Sorry I guess we are not understanding each other.

It sounds like you are talking about searching KW only, but from Oxford and the results you see?

That's what I searched. Lets be more specific and see if we can get on the same page although since I am searching from US maybe I see something different.

I searched for: T-shirt printing (with location set to Oxford).
https://www.google.co.uk/#changed_loc=1&q=T-shirt printing

I get Shirtworks Cowley location at C. (In the blended results which is your organic and local maps listing combined into a single listing.)

You said: "it's not about the maps as we are on them but if you search in Oxford for T-shirt printing we don't feature anymore in the organic list until page 7, which is the same place we get if we search from a location outside the area."

That is correct and normal. The blended listing takes the place of your organic listing. At least until recently when some businesses get both organic and blended listings. But previous to a month ago if you were on 1st page in blended, being page 7 organic would be the norm.

If that's not what you are talking about then please be more specific.

 

[Andy T Shirtworks UK]

Re: drop in local rankings

"When you say local do you mean that you just specialise in the local maps rather than the local organic results?"

No I specialize in local, either/or/both. But it started sounding like you were talking national results.

Sorry I guess we are not understanding each other.

It sounds like you are talking about searching KW only, but from Oxford and the results you see? yes that's correct

That's what I searched. Lets be more specific and see if we can get on the same page although since I am searching from US maybe I see something different.
Yes it is different I have attached a screen shot

I searched for: T-shirt printing (with location set to Oxford).
https://www.google.co.uk/#changed_lo...irt%20printing

I get Shirtworks Cowley location at C. (In the blended results which is your organic and local maps listing combined into a single listing.)

You said: "it's not about the maps as we are on them but if you search in Oxford for T-shirt printing we don't feature anymore in the organic list until page 7, which is the same place we get if we search from a location outside the area."

That is correct and normal. The blended listing takes the place of your organic listing. At least until recently when some businesses get both organic and blended listings. But previous to a month ago if you were on 1st page in blended, being page 7 organic would be the norm. We were for years first place in the organic and first in the local map, so 2 listings on page 1.
So is Google only listing a business once on a page if it deems it a local search? From the screen shot business A is listed twice, so not sure if that is happening in the Uk yet


If that's not what you are talking about then please be more specific.