GMB Penalty?

[DanM.]

Hi everyone.

I have a problem with my GMB listing. I want to apologize for what will become a wall of text but I think the more information I share, the more likely someone will be able to help me.

This is the URL of the GMB / Google + listing (I merged both a few weeks ago)

https://plus.google.com/107121596948488767832/about

I realize there might be a language barrier: "Schl?sseldienst" means "locksmith" and "n?rnberg" is nuremberg. "Schl?sselnotdienst" is a synonym.


My local website ranks # 4 for my main keyword right now. There are 2 competitors and one directory above me in the SERPS.

If I use the Aol search as mentioned by Linda Buquet my site is at #8.
(http://localsearchforum.catalystema...-how-google-local-algo-really-works-what.html)

So since there seems to be a correlation between organic Serps and rankings in the 7 pack my site should be visible in there.

However, it is not. If I open google maps and search for my business category / main keyword my site is #61. So it is basically invisible to any search query.


~4 months ago the location of the businness changed. I changed all citations. It took a while but right now there are only 1-2 sites that still have the old data.

You will find plenty of results in google for the old address but when you click the results there will be updated consistent data.

I made screenshots of something interessting:

In the first screenshot I am searching for my main keyword + streetname of the old address: My Site is in a 1pack for that term ranking above all the organic results.



In the second screenshot I am searching for my main keyword + street name of the new address. I am not visible above the fold there but below the 7pack at #5. Funny thing is that my youtube channel is #3 for this search query.



~2-3 months ago (one months after the change of the address + citations) I realized that when searching for the businness name there would be a the right (new) address displayed but the pin was on the old location. I contacted the google local team so they could fix this.

As a result my local/GMB listing was deleted. During the following emails I found out that I had to make changes to "area of service" since my businness does not serve customers at its location.
After I changed that I got the listing back.

Another detail. The site never was in the 7pack so far. I guess that this is partially because there were problems with the address and businness name from the beginning onward.

The businness name before the location change 4 months ago was keyword stuffed. However, there is another businness in this town whose GMB name is the exact match keyword which is ranking just fine.

Thank you in advance for your help

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for posting in the right section and for all the info Dan.

This is a peer to peer support forum. I help when I can, but I am tied up all day.
So I'm hoping one of our members has time to give you some advice.

Thanks, Linda

 

[JoshuaMackens]

This sounds eerily similar to my issue I posted awhile back. I can't find the thread but look under my name and you should be able to find it. I mean super creepy similar down to I had changed all my citations and they weren't cached in Google yet but if you clicked on the result, the citation information was correct. Try to find it if you can.

Anyways, what ended up happening for us was there was an internal bug in Mapmaker that for a set period of 3 months, any location changes in that period didn't make the change to the new address. It left a ghost signal at the old location. I had just happened to change our address in that period unfortunately.

When they refreshed the database it fixed it apparently.

I don't pretend to know exactly what happened but my source told me that was the issue and that it was an issue that the people at MM quickly found after being notified and fixed manually in their system. When he told me that, I checked and we were showing up just fine then. There wasn't a public release about it, I guess it was just a quick fix or refresh. No clue.

Sorry that wasn't much help. The greatest ranking tool you have is...time. As much as that sucks, that's probably what you'll have to do, just wait.

Maybe someone else will chime in with another experience!

 

[DanM.]

Thank you Joshua.

So you`re saying that all I can do is waiting, right?
I kind of suspected something similar but wanted to make sure I am not missing something.

 

[Linda Buquet]

The hide your address violation was serious and you got deleted because of it.

Any time you move it upsets rankings and can take long time to move up.

Any time you change your name, even a legit change, same as above.

Keyword stuffing is a serious violation.

NOTE: Sometimes violations have ranking penalties that linger for 4 - 8 months. They don't always just go away because you start complying.

So your problem could be any of the 5 issues above or likely a combo of a couple.

FYI just cuz the other guy still gets away with KW stuffing does not make it right. Google does not catch everyone. But it's like speeding. Yes everyone does it, but when you are the one that gets caught, saying "everyone is doing it" won't get you out of a ticket. It's still against the law.