Google Showing Different Panel Information for 1 of 2 Nearby College Campus Locations

[Erik Marsh]

Hey everyone!

First post as a registered user, but I've lurked this forum for a couple years now. I did my best to find any similar questions with the search, but no luck. My question is regarding these two GBP listings:

• Arizona College - Mesa - Google SERP, Map Listing
• Arizona College - Glendale - Google SERP, Map Listing

The Problem
A few weeks ago, Google started showing what appears to me to be a brand knowledge panel for Arizona College instead of the local business knowledge panel for the Mesa campus location. Before then, it used to show the same types of local business info in the knowledge panel as it does currently for the Glendale location. As a result, potential customers see very different information depending on which campus they search for, which is hurting leads.

These are two college locations offering tradeschool programs near Phoenix, Arizona with nearly identical offerings (Mesa offers 5/6 of the same programs) and therefore they have very similar GBP profiles (both are hybrid service area/storefront). We use Yext to synch NAP and other information across directories and so far it looks like both locations have the same information filled out.

Between the two Google Business Profiles, the same fields are filled in but with different information. Between the profiles, Glendale and Mesa have different:

• NAP info
• Service areas (except they both list Phoenix)
• Pictures
• URLs (each has its own location landing page)
• Location descriptions
• Google posts (similar but not 100% the same)

The SERPS
Both of these locations have been verified for a long time and It doesn't look to me like Google thinks these are duplicate locations (no trouble with the other location's knowledge panel showing for branded keywords including the location, for example). But here are the differences between what Google shows in the knowledge panel for these locations:

Any Ideas?
Mesa gets no reviews or Google posts and instead shows tuition cost comparisons to averages from the Department of Education, including a breakdown of financial aid for different household income levels. So, Google seems to be emphasizing that Mesa is a college rather than providing all of the normal business info we see in the Glendale example.

What might be causing Google to treat these two locations so differently and what I could try to encourage Google to switch back? The information Google is showing is correct, but doesn't align with the search intent (users searching for a specific campus's location name aren't looking for general tuition and financial aid info from government sources), but maybe there's something hidden here that is pushing Google to think it should treat these two locations differently? Any help or advice is welcome.

Thanks,
-Erik Marsh

 

[JS Girard]

I think this article has all the information you need: Knowledge Panels and Google My Business for Colleges & Universities - LocalU.org.

 

[Erik Marsh]

I think this article has all the information you need: Knowledge Panels and Google My Business for Colleges & Universities - LocalU.org.

Thanks for the resource - it seems that the issue we're having is that Google's algorithm has decided that our Mesa location represents the "institution" rather than another campus location, so Mesa gets the "Main Entity" panel. Since we don't have a home location or headquarters listed anywhere, I think this might be solved with some updates we have pending to our website that will clarify the NAP for our locations overall. I will update this post if that changes, but do you have any suggestions for how we might encourage Google's algorithm to see that Arizona College - Mesa is not the institution but rather another individual branch?

 

[JS Girard]

I don't know much about knowledge panel/knowledge graph matters, I'm afraid. I just have a freakishly good memory about articles I've read before. Jason Barnard from Kalicube does a lot of work with them, but I dunno if he has an account here.