June 2025 Core Update - Impact on Local Businesses?

[JoyHawkins]

Are you guys seeing any movement yet from the June 2025 core update?

 

[JS Girard]

Nothing aside from the mass edits that came along. A mass edit to names and payment methods shortly before, and now the edit to social media profiles.

Also saw a warning I'd not seen before about the pin being "too far from the address" on a GBP and demanding that it be fixed. The problem was actually an error in the city name that Google had somehow not picked before.

 

[MKing55]

Not sure if this could be attributed to the algo update, but one of my client's GBPs are showing all of their photos being "rejected" with only one photo of a team member now live on the GBP, seemingly out of nowhere.. Have zero clue what is going on here.

 

[fisicx]

I'm not so sure the core update affected GBP. The main purpose of the update was to reward websites that had great content (and by implication push down sites that were less useful).

Since a GBP is not a website there shouldn't be any changes. The reporting bugs that have been noted and other issues to individual listings maybe just coincidental that it happened at about the same time.

A local site that tells stories of the services you offer along with lots of social proof should do well. Google likes to reward sites where the owner has put in some effort.

 

[keyserholiday]

Nothing aside from the mass edits that came along. A mass edit to names and payment methods shortly before, and now the edit to social media profiles.

Also saw a warning I'd not seen before about the pin being "too far from the address" on a GBP and demanding that it be fixed. The problem was actually an error in the city name that Google had somehow not picked before.

This is unrelated to the core update. Core updates only impact rankings and not GBP attributes.

 

[JS Girard]

This is unrelated to the core update. Core updates only impact rankings and not GBP attributes.

Managing 2k+ GBPs means some patterns are more obvious to spot even is only a dozen GBPs total are directly affected. And I've been monitoring enough to notice obvious mass edit patterns occurring with every single core update, to the point that on several occasions I have known was coming.

If I see multiple GBPs suddenly getting secondary phone numbers attached? I can guarantee you there's going to be a core update within a week or two, because that particular pattern of Google edit has never occurred in any other context.

These edits are not a ranking issue or caused by the core update itself, but they are linked in some way. That is why I also clearly said I wasn't seeing any significant ranking changes yet.

 

[daniowens]

For Google Business Profiles, I'm seeing a drop around July 8, 2025 in average position in GSC. The average position went back up afterwards but not to what it was before. I looked at a rank tracker tool and it's showing a drop in positions also. Impressions are up and Clicks are down.

 

[JS Girard]

For Google Business Profiles, I'm seeing a drop around July 8, 2025 in average position in GSC. The average position went back up afterwards but not to what it was before. I looked at a rank tracker tool and it's showing a drop in positions also. Impressions are up and Clicks are down.

Sounds like a typical AIO-linked decoupling. Have AIOs begun to appear on new queries relevant to your clients? Would make sense that would happen during a core update.

 

[daniowens]

Sounds like a typical AIO-linked decoupling. Have AIOs begun to appear on new queries relevant to your clients? Would make sense that would happen during a core update.

Good question. It's on my list of things to rule out.

I also noticed that when you rank for more keywords, impressions go down. These new keywords aren't ranking high, so average position will go down.

But I appreciate your comment about AIOs. If AIOs are affecting rankings, I would think it would not make average position go down? Being mentioned in AIOs will show a higher position since it's at the top of the SERPs?

 

[JS Girard]

Good question. It's on my list of things to rule out.

I also noticed that when you rank for more keywords, impressions go down. These new keywords aren't ranking high, so average position will go down.

But I appreciate your comment about AIOs. If AIOs are affecting rankings, I would think it would not make average position go down? Being mentioned in AIOs will show a higher position since it's at the top of the SERPs?

Okay, this depends HEAVILY whether you mean GBP stats specifically (GBP ranking do not take AIOs into account, just as they ignore all the organic results on the page) or organic local, which are affected the same as any other website.

IIRC (but please don't quote me on this: I don't touch analytics at all as part of my role, so this is what I recall seeing talked about), nothing at all about AIOs or AI mode is currently included into the search console (though Google said they're working on it), so you wouldn't be able to tell just from the search console. You'd need an external ranking checker, especially one that takes screenshots.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Do you have a Ahrefs account? It's really easy to see in there when AIOs started showing up all over the place for the site in question. We usually look at that chart and compare it with GSC.

 

[daniowens]

Okay, this depends HEAVILY whether you mean GBP stats specifically (GBP ranking do not take AIOs into account, just as they ignore all the organic results on the page) or organic local, which are affected the same as any other website.

IIRC (but please don't quote me on this: I don't touch analytics at all as part of my role, so this is what I recall seeing talked about), nothing at all about AIOs or AI mode is currently included into the search console (though Google said they're working on it), so you wouldn't be able to tell just from the search console. You'd need an external ranking checker, especially one that takes screenshots.

Thank you for the tips. I love it!

Yeah, it's a real bummer to not see AIO data in GSC yet.

 

[daniowens]

Do you have a Ahrefs account? It's really easy to see in there when AIOs started showing up all over the place for the site in question. We usually look at that chart and compare it with GSC.

Ooo, thanks! I'll take a look.