Google Listing Disappeared With Recent Update? - Try This

[andrewsmg]

I've noticed for a few of my clients that I get mostly the one out of many results based on building addresses that are known to be "virtual offices." The one result that would show, would not have a duplicate address with any other website or listing.

 

[Linda Buquet]

ALOT of professionals are just going to have to redouble efforts to out-power the others whom they share space with.

Out-power OR out-pay via Adwords.

ALOT of professionals are just going to have to redouble efforts to out-power the others whom they share space with. This will be hard for a ton of attorneys, CPA's, therapists, etc.

Drs and Dentists are a biggie too.

 

[PaulSteinbrueck]

So here's something totally bizarre...

I'm looking at the Google Maps rankings for [keyword] near [city, ST] and my client is not in the top 20. I zoom out and then back in to the same exact zoom factor as the default and the client's listing is there. The ranking of other listings have changed too. I don't get it.

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hey All

I have 2 questions about the new zoom/filter issue in regards to multi-practitioner listings. Given that we are seeing this affect businesses at the same address in the same category, something is coming to mind.

Linda - if you pop by, I recall from the 'old days' your recommendation that GMB categories be divided between the business and the practitioners so that they are not duplicating categories amongst themselves. Remember that?

So, my questions are:

1) Is the community here seeing attorneys, dentists, medical offices, etc., being hit hard by this new filter so that only one entity per building is showing without zooming? In other words, ONLY the business, or ONLY one of the practitioners in a multi-practitioner scenario.

2) Has anyone experimented with changing the categories for one of the practitioners so that it isn't shared by any of the others or by the business to see if it pops back into the local finder, without zooming?

Very curious about this, and would love to know Linda's 2016 thoughts on shared categories between practitioners, given the filter and other changes in recent years.

Thanks so much for anything anyone can share

 

[JoyHawkins]

1) Is the community here seeing attorneys, dentists, medical offices, etc., being hit hard by this new filter so that only one entity per building is showing without zooming? In other words, ONLY the business, or ONLY one of the practitioners in a multi-practitioner scenario.

Correct. I haven't seen that only one is showing, sometimes there are 2 (I have yet to see more than 2) and it's not per office, it's per building. For example, I spoke to a dentist who was filtered. There were 4 total listings for her building that were all dentists (that would be competing for "dentist + city"). 2 showed up in the Local Finder. One was a practice listing, another was a practitioner listing (for the same practice that was ranking). However, the listings for the 2 other completely practices in that same building were both filtered.

2) Has anyone experimented with changing the categories for one of the practitioners so that it isn't shared by any of the others or by the business to see if it pops back into the local finder, without zooming?

Very curious about this, and would love to know Linda's 2016 thoughts on shared categories between practitioners, given the filter and other changes in recent years.

Thanks so much for anything anyone can share

The filter works per query. Whoever is most relevant to that particular keyword is who gets to rank and the others get filtered (again, not always one, sometimes more). By removing the category you need to rank for that category, you would essentially be severely lowering your relevance so I cannot imagine that would somehow cause you to rank when you were filtered previously. I haven't tried this though. The way to escape the filter is to have the best ranking power out of the listings you're technically competing against. It's exactly the same as the organic filter this way. Google regularly filters duplicate content and they are seeing these profiles as sort of "duplicates".

I think it makes sense to use different categories for practitioners if they specialize in something specific that has an appropriate category.

 

[Marie Haynes]

Update: I experimented with changing the name of the business slightly for one of the listings that only appears when the map is zoomed out and in. It's been 3 days now and the new name has registered, but the listing still does not appear unless the zoom trick is done.

 

[BenFisher]

Has anyone noticed a change today, looks to me like the two cases of filtered clients I was monitoring have both come back, not ranking as high, but back.

 

[MiriamEllis]

The one I was tracking has popped back into the 3-Pack and Local Finder, as well as several other businesses at the same address. Yes, I'd say something is changing. Crossing fingers, because I really did NOT like that filter

 

[BenFisher]

Joy did a little checking and did not see any new changes, so let's see if it sticks.
I am using Brightlocal Ranking checker and emulator to keep this a controlled test.

https://www.brightlocal.com/local-search-results-checker/

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah definitely let me know if it sticks! I believe there is some AB testing going on. When your client jumped back in, did the other guy disappear?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Update: for one keyword, all 3 attorneys at the same address now dominate the 3-pack. Before it was just 1 (other 2 were filtered). Not this way for a lot of their keywords though. Most are still filtered.

 

[BenFisher]

For one the main office returned and the practitioner got filtered (was this way before and preferred)

Also with this sam attny office - they are showing lower ranking in local finder but higher ranking in a pure maps search.

Another client did not have any competitors at the same location, they were gone from map queries and came back today. No others filtered out.

Lastly, the other Jeweler that was being filtered, seems to have also come back and no one else filtered.

Will keep an eye on it

 

[JoyHawkins]

Just wanted to add that Maps ranking is it's own thing so don't worry about that. The Local Finder is what the 3-pack pulls from. I have seen a couple cases recently where the business was in the 3-pack yet missing from the Local Finder. It only lasted a day or 2 though before it matched so I think it is what happens when a rollout isn't finished...or something like that.

 

[Marie Haynes]

My example case is still filtered as well.

But I have hope now that things will change. This can't be good for users. If I was searching for that dentist I saw last year and Google only presented me with one dentist from his practice, how can that be helpful?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Marie,

The dental office would still trigger if you searched it by name, so I can't think you would have an issue finding someone you already know about.

I think the purpose behind it is diversity. If I'm looking for a lawyer, do I really want to see 3 lawyers that all work for the same firm or is it better for me to see several actual different offices? It's very similar to the organic filter that way. Google doesn't want the searcher to see nothing but the same thing over and over and over.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Marie,

The dental office would still trigger if you searched it by name, so I can't think you would have an issue finding someone you already know about.

I think the purpose behind it is diversity. If I'm looking for a lawyer, do I really want to see 3 lawyers that all work for the same firm or is it better for me to see several actual different offices? It's very similar to the organic filter that way. Google doesn't want the searcher to see nothing but the same thing over and over and over.

But what if 2 lawyers who work in separate firms but at the same building are both the best lawyers in town? Google isn't meeting their goal of the best search results for the user.

However, maybe this is a new filter Google put in to make sure business listings don't have multiple listings ranking (practitioner and business) and it just got turned up too high and is filtering multiples businesses at the same location.

Hopefully that's all it is and they can get it corrected.

I'm amazed Google doesn't do more PR with this type of changes. They could benefit from our feedback and obviously we would benefit from their transparency, even if it is more than likely limited.

 

[pbarnhart]

We now have several examples here in Austin because of the way office condos have been developed. For example, there are 10 buildings in one office complex - but they all have the same street address with the addition of a suite number. A business does not have a suite number in their GMB listings, and all other similar businesses in other buildings have disappeared.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Someone else posted in the G+ community of one getting filtered due to a practice across the street (diff building, same street name). I had one of those happen too but thought Google somehow knew the same company owned both practices. In his example there is no affiliation whatsoever. Anyone seeing examples like that?

 

[David Faltz]

I see quite a few listing being filtered from completely different offices, NAP, URL, but because they are in the same building, only the top one shows. This is a terrible update. If diversity was their goal, I think they missed the mark by a mile. If they wanted to filter out multiple listings from the same practice, this would not be the way to go about it.

Many office buildings house similar type lawyers, doctors, dentists and accountants, etc. Yet Google is filtering all but one. It looks like to me it is only being filtered for the most part by the address with no other information being taken into account.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Yeah, I think we can agree Google gets a lot of things right but unless new evidence comes to light, it seems like they got this one really wrong.