Fluctuating Local Rankings by Time of Day for HVAC Company in Pensacola, FL

[Matt Chauhan]

We’re managing local SEO for an HVAC company in Pensacola, FL, and we’re observing unusual ranking behavior in Local Falcon reports.

The Google Business Profile is set to be open 24/7, but when we run local search grid reports during peak hours (midday to afternoon), rankings drop significantly across the grid. However, if we run the same grid report during off-peak hours (very early in the morning or late at night), the rankings appear much stronger and cover a wider area.

Has anyone else in the local SEO community seen this type of fluctuation in rankings based on the time of day?

• Is this due to Google recalibrating results when search demand is higher?
• Could it be linked to user behavior signals or competitor activity during peak times?
• Do you have any recommendations on how to stabilize rankings so that performance during busy hours is more consistent?

Appreciate any insights from those who’ve dealt with similar patterns in competitive service areas.

 

[fisicx]

If your competitors are only open during normal working hours and have a better GBP than your client the fluctuations are as expected.

In the middle of the night only your client is open so they will rank higher.

 

[WilliamGMBE]

Google Maps ranking prioritizes businesses that are open over once that are closed. In your case since you are 24 hours business, during working hours you have more competition and that could be why you are ranking lower.

So, to showcase, these are the business that showed up for me when I search for 'HVAC in Pensacola' and ran it though Local Scan: https://app.gmbeverywhere.com/relea...5-422e-a134-e579de7c76fe&via=localf&tab=hours

As you can see from the graph at the link, more than half the business are not open 24 hours, so they compete mainly when they are open. That could be the reason why you have this fluctuations. Have given open time below for this search term: