Google Local update. Temporary bug or permanent?

[Maxw555]

We are seeing major changes in the moving industry. Have been ranking 1-2 for the last 5 years. There are now companies whom we've never heard of ranking for no rhyme or reason. I've noticed this in many major cities as well. Local results are completely different. Been like this for over a week now. What are you guys seeing? Permanent or potential bug?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Maxw555, I'd say at least 3 things are going on:

1. The moving industry is full of spammers and (overall) legit companies that also do some spamming, as you know.

2. Because of the huge number of people moving from specific states to other states, in many ways it's a good time to be a mover, and an opportune time for a spammer to spam. There are always ants at the picnic.

3. From what I've seen over many years, Google has a tendency to rotate in lousy or new businesses / GMB pages simply because they're new. Google gives them a crack, probably just to see who clicks and (by extension) whether those seem like good search results. They usually drop out of or drop down in the Maps results as quickly as they showed up, though they're often replaced by other weak results. One spot in the 3-pack always seems to be a kiddie table.

Plus, I suppose it's possible the November update had some effect.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Yup! I posted about this here the other date, a lot of people are seeing the same thing as you. For one company I know, they had about 60 terms in the local pack at one point, now they have 2, and it has been fluctuating between 0-8 daily, but no recovery. They don't use keywords or anything else that classifies as spam, about 4.8 rating and 18 reviews, with more that come in every so often. It's very weird, a lot of the people that knocked them out aren't even keyword stuffing.

 

[Brock1321M]

We have seen some crazy fluctuations in several verticals. Seemed to hit the larger cities like Las Vegas, New York city, Chicago, Bridgeport. I have noticed the Map grid has been fluctuating (zooming in and zooming out) There is almost NO reason why some of these new listings are ranking. BUT I have noticed that a lot of them have exact match or partial match domains (website) Wonder if anyone else is seeing that??? Or AT LEAST has an extremely relevant topic/entity in the URL such as lawyer, firm, attorney, city, injury, etc...

 

[Maxw555]

Yup! I posted about this here the other date, a lot of people are seeing the same thing as you. For one company I know, they had about 60 terms in the local pack at one point, now they have 2, and it has been fluctuating between 0-8 daily, but no recovery. They don't use keywords or anything else that classifies as spam, about 4.8 rating and 18 reviews, with more that come in every so often. It's very weird, a lot of the people that knocked them out aren't even keyword stuffing.

Thanks just took a look. I am seeing this pretty much throughout the entire service industry. We noticed something somewhat similar about a year ago almost to the date. The 2 that have been in the pack for 5+ years drop 10-20 spots. This is what leads me to believe it is a bug. Companies now ranking with no website, 2.5-3.5 rating, few reviews etc. I guess time will tell.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Google just announced there was an update, it ended Dec. 8: