How did the March 2023 Core Algorithm Update Impact Local Rankings?

[JoyHawkins]

I'm still digging into this but from what I can see thusfar, most of the major changes happened in the local packs right at the end. The update ran from March 15 to 28, 2023.

Here is an example for a personal injury lawyer (comparing March 13 to April 3):

What are you guys seeing?

 

[JoyHawkins]

What I'm saying is that your examples are not that different from cases I've been seeing all the way back in July last year, and which I posted about in November. Mine just had more profiles sharing a category and address.

I'm not saying the address filter has not changed at all during the core update. I'm sayig if it did, this further softening continues a trend that goes back almost a year.

This matches my findings as well.

 

[chadkimball]

I guess address filtering does technically affect rankings. But I was more thinking this thread was about cut and dried ranking increases or drops that coincide with the march update.

 

[keyserholiday]

What I'm saying is that your examples are not that different from cases I've been seeing all the way back in July last year, and which I posted about in November. Mine just had more profiles sharing a category and address.

I'm not saying the address filter has not changed at all during the core update. I'm sayig if it did, this further softening continues a trend that goes back almost a year.

What I am trying to figure out, and answer is, was the March Core update tied in with what I am seeing. I get that you say it was softened in November. You are not answering my question. When you searched for chiropractor, did you ever see two businesses with the same address and category show up in the map pack? I get that there is a language barrier here, and I am not trying to be rude. I am trying to learn more.

 

[keyserholiday]

We did see dramatic ranking drops for one of our clients. Service area type business with address not visible. Their website beats everyone else in terms of content, DA, backlinks. The only thing I can see where they need improvement to match/beat the competition is more reviews. But still digging into why. Anyone else?

DA is not a ranking factor, I would ignore it. Links pointing to the website don't seem to have as much weight as they used to according to the latest Local Ranking Factor Survey.

 

[chadkimball]

DA is not a ranking factor, I would ignore it. Links pointing to the website don't seem to have as much weight as they used to according to the latest Local Ranking Factor Survey.

ok, fair enough.

I wonder if google turned up the dial on reviews as a ranking factor during the March update

 

[ElizabethRule]

I am unsure if this is related, but I got two results for business profiles at the same address using the same category. I'd love to get @ElizabethRule's take on this!!

Looks to me like proximity is playing a major part here. I have seen two businesses at the same address with the same category rank in the 3 pack, but only when I am searching from super close to, or exactly at, the address. Maybe the algo update softened the filter even more!

 

[Lahsa H.]

I've been keeping track of 25 GBPs, and I found out that the rankings of 20 of them have dropped in the past week. Out of those 20, 18 are SABs. Drops are terrible, from 3 pack, to out of 21. Some of them are recovering, but very slowly...

 

[JS Girard]

I've been keeping track of 25 GBPs, and I found out that the rankings of 20 of them have dropped in the past week. Out of those 20, 18 are SABs. Drops are terrible, from 3 pack, to out of 21. Some of them are recovering, but very slowly...

I was looking at a GBP just yesterday and noticed something similar. There was absolutely no reason for it being completely absent from ranking as it had a significant amount of fresh reviews (26 vs. average of 10-15)... and it struck me: even though most business in this vertical should be hiding their addresses, only three business out of sixty that were in the grid were SABs.

So, onto wildly theorizing.

Despite Google's rules, the majority of GBPs continue displaying addresses (e.g. in the home services industry), especially Google-generated profiles. I've seen before hidden address causing trouble in specific verticals (Insurance Brokers, Massage therapists). I suspect that something in this update made the "how frequent is it to hide the address" criterion apply to a query level, and this causes utter havoc for SABs whenever Google finds "not enough" SABs as potential results.

Now not all SABs display this. My SAB address bug client does not, for example, but Realtors do tend to have a genuinely higher proportion of SABs than other industries.

 

[chadkimball]

I've been keeping track of 25 GBPs, and I found out that the rankings of 20 of them have dropped in the past week. Out of those 20, 18 are SABs. Drops are terrible, from 3 pack, to out of 21. Some of them are recovering, but very slowly...

Since it was in the past week, was unlikely to be the March core update, or do you think its from a rollback

 

[JoyHawkins]

We saw the organic impact mid-march (14th-15th) but the local impact was at the end of the month, 28th-30th.

 

[Lahsa H.]

Since it was in the past week, was unlikely to be the March core update, or do you think its from a rollback

Pretty sure it was march core update

 

[chadkimball]

We did see dramatic ranking drops for one of our clients. Service area type business with address not visible. Their website beats everyone else in terms of content, DA, backlinks. The only thing I can see where they need improvement to match/beat the competition is more reviews. But still digging into why. Anyone else?

the past week we've been working on reviews, already saw dramatic improvement in the rankings. could be a coincidence, or could be that the march core update turned up the dial on reviews as a ranking factor.

We also got about 20 article pages indexed on the site that were not in the index for some reason. Could have been that also, but I doubt it, seeing that google has been moving away from onsite pages as a ranking factor.

anyone else take action and experience recoveries yet?

 

[keyserholiday]

the past week we've been working on reviews, already saw dramatic improvement in the rankings. could be a coincidence, or could be that the march core update turned up the dial on reviews as a ranking factor

@JoyHawkins did a case study and excellent write-up about review recency and the impacts on rankings.

 

[chadkimball]

@JoyHawkins did a case study and excellent write-up about review recency and the impacts on rankings.

Right but that was before the March update. This specific client experienced drops from this update

 

[keyserholiday]

Right but that was before the March update. This specific client experienced drops from this update

I see many examples of unclaimed GBPs with no reviews ranking in the map pack. There has been a lot going on with local search in the past few weeks and months.

 

[chadkimball]

thats a crazy one. outranking one with 97 reviews and a website

 

[keyserholiday]

thats a crazy one. outranking one with 97 reviews and a website

Here is a tweet from Darren Shaw where he saw the same thing. It's not about who has the most reviews.

 

[chadkimball]

Here is a tweet from Darren Shaw where he saw the same thing. It's not about who has the most reviews.

That tweet is specifically about proximity.
In the specific instance of my client that lost major positions, competitors that are very far away are outranking him, the only thing I could see was reviews, but could be another factor where they are beating him

 

[keyserholiday]

That tweet is specifically about proximity.
In the specific instance of my client that lost major positions, competitors that are very far away are outranking him, the only thing I could see was reviews, but could be another factor where they are beating him

What is the city or zipcode and the search term?

 

[chadkimball]

I'll see if I can get permission to post it