Local Listing Dropped from Pack in Last 2 Months

[Danny]

Off the bat, I'd like to commend the peers and Linda herself for the great support that has been provided here regularly. It's been helpful on a few occasions, and hopefully can be again!

That said, a client of mine has had issues with their local listing showing up in the "pack." The G+ page is: https://plus.google.com/+CityAutoRentalCleveland/

For months, it was in that pack. Just within the last month or two, it has slipped down to an organic ranking on the second/third page ONLY. I can't figure out why it's been demoted! Specifically for the keywords "car rental cleveland," "car rental cleveland oh," "car rental cleveland ohio," and "car rental in cleveland."

Can anyone shed some light on this recent slippage? It'd be very much appreciated!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey Danny and welcome.

Could you give me a screenshot of your G+ dashboard and Places dashboard that shows your categories and description? OR if easier just copy the data here and tell me which data is in which dash.

I see potential issues but am not sure without seeing the data in your dashboards.

Additionally the home page title tag could really use some reworking and is not well optimized IMO.

And last but not least, looks like the big brands have this market locked up.

PS I am gone all day so will reply tomorrow after I see the screen shots.

 

[Danny]

Yes, Linda. Thanks for the quick response.

1. See the screenshots here for G+ and Places, respectively:



2. What in particular do you see in the home page title tags that might be underoptimized? We've had some debate here about putting company name in title, as well. Any thoughts there?

3. Yes, the big brands seem to have the real estate. I am just wondering why this is the case. I know Google adjusted their SERP display with regards to blended local with organic listings, but would that cause the change? The data does correlate with this update...
(Google Local SERP Results Change Again | Understanding Google Places & Local Search)

 

[Danny]

Hi Linda (and all),

Hope your holidays were restful. Mine was much needed....

Any chance to investigate this a bit since last week?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry today was my Christmas with the other half of the family so I was off all day.

I see a few issues with cats.

These are the cats on the live listing - compare with the cats above:

"Car Dealer, car_rental, Car Rental Agency, Used Car Dealer, Car Rental Agency, Used Car Dealer, Rental Car, Car Rental, Cheap Car Rental, Rental, Truck Rental Agency, Van Rental Agency, Automobile Renting"

There are more than 10 cats. And some don't match either of the dashboards above, which makes me think there is a hidden merged dupe. The ones in blue don't match and I think may be coming from a 2nd claimed listing somewhere, which is a violation and can cause all kinds of other issues. Could the client or previous SEO have this listing claimed in another dash somewhere?

2) The categories are overly repetitive which looks spammy to the algo and I think can trip a filter. I've seen Google ding for repeating the same cats over and over. Car is repeated 9 times and rental 10 times.

Car Rental Agency, Car Rental, Rental Car, Cheap Car Rental - essentially are the same thing and the only one of those 4 that's even a valid cat is the 1st one. The others violate, covered in my next point.

3) In addition to repetition, some of the cats violate the "Is not Does" rule. I have not seen her ding for that specifically but do know of one listing that got suspended.

Additionally, I wonder if this other listing is allowed and if it is, I wonder if it's competing and knocked the Auto Rental listing out especially since same address and the cats and site content are similar.

https://plus.google.com/103380386200406118511/about?gl=us&hl=en

The "leasing" site says:

"Transportation services for children, rental cars and the leasing or sales of cars are all located here in one building 13945 Triskett Road Cleveland, OH...

We have an onsite car rental service...

We constantly have used cars for sale..."

I wonder if the algo thinks as I do that that sounds like 1 company with different divisions as opposed to separate and distinct companies.

Re the site - there is only so much time and free advice I can give to one listing so the main thing I can tell you is that the title tag to the algo I think would look spammy. Google also sometimes dings I think for too much KW repetition in the title tags.

Title tag: Car Rentals Cleveland Ohio | Car Rental Cleveland OH | Cleveland Ohio

KWs should not be repeated more than twice IMO. City and state are both KWs for local and they are repeated 3 times each over and over.

Hope that helps and best of luck!

 

[Danny]

Linda,

Thanks so much for the educated look. I'm not sure they have a duplicate merging on this listing--I honestly didn't know this was possible. How do you go about checking the listing's categories as you've done? Being logged in, I only see the ones I've mentioned....

With regards to the Personal Leasing listing/site, we've expressed concern over this before with our client, and this added information may put us in a better position to have this rectified, either by eliminating the listing's address or changing locations.

Thank you again, and I really appreciate the help.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sure thing, you are welcome.

To see all the cats Google has click "edit details" on the live listing on the bottom of the "Contact Info" card. Or look at the listing in map maker.

Now Google will occasionally add a category or 2 but not usually that many.

In the past you could reclaim a listing. So for instance if the old SEO would not give up the log in or the client could not remember who claimed it - you could just reclaim. Or sometimes the client would not realize they were logged into a different account and they'd claim a dupe and then edit NAP to correct it then forget about it in that other account. Once NAP was the same the 2 would merge.

 

[Danny]

Very interesting...

I have checked the map maker details for several accounts, and they all have duplicate, erroneous, or unrelated-to-the-business cats. I wonder why that is. I know not all of them, if any, are duplicate merges.

Thank you for the insight here. I'll investigate further to see why this may be happening on a larger scale.