Trending [November 5, 2019 Local Algorithm Update] Unexplained big drops in GMB rankings

[MarianoF]

Hi all, I want to share what happened last night with my GMB rankings. I had 12 Keywords ranking in the 3 pack for the last year. Yesterday suddenly 9 of those keywords went down 12 positions. Any idea what is going on? why all together? My business is a Medical clinic and I have not done any modification to my site or my GMB listing.
Cheers

 

[IMP]

I have had the same thing happen yesterday as well in Legal. Dropped from position 4 to page 2 in maps.

 

[Tilak]

Same thing happened with one of my client's website (related to Legal). It was in the 3 pack but now it dropped to #10.

Around 10 days back we have updated product section from the left menu links but now that PRODUCT link is also not available on the left side.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

It definitely looks like there was an algorithm update that impacted the local algorithm recently. I personally haven't dove too deep into this yet but here's a starting point if you want to take a look.

 

[Simon Cox]

Had same - dropped 8 keywords for a client out of the map pack but all went to 2 or 3 as the competition don't know how to build websites yet.
What I did note is that one competitor has spots 2 and 3 now as they have seperate GMB accounts for the business at slightly differnt locations (1 mile apart nearly) - same business name and same website. that had been the same last year but the 2nd listing had dropped outfor a long while. I think some sort of reset may have happened - G probablymucked up again. Anyway glad its not just me!

 

[Austin_Holds]

Dealing with a similar issue here. I've had some listings drop from the map pack to as low as spot 50. I'm baffled.

 

[JoyHawkins]

We are seeing some of this as well. I'm hoping it's an error as I'm not sure what the explanation would be. I've checked a few accounts and most are drops, not inclines.

 

[keyserholiday]

I signed up for the Brightlocal Local RankFlux update and as of November 3rd, they have reported seeing spikes in map rankings.
LocalFlux

 

[whitespark]

Hmm. I wonder if it's further tightening of the proximity factor. Has anyone compared Local Falcon reports before/after?

 

[Austin_Holds]

Regarding the news that you are now limited to 20 service areas (Google My Business Limits Businesses To 20 Service Areas) coming out today, you think this could be the update to SABs we've been waiting for?

I think the fact that this news was released the same day as volatility stabilized could maybe mean it was more than just a coincidence.

Could your inputted service areas actually make a difference now?

 

[whitespark]

Seeing some drops across some of my rank tracking campaigns.

But seeing gains across many of them too. Actually, I'm mostly seeing gains.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah I'm finding a mix between losses and gains now that I've looked at about a dozen more. I won't have time to dig into patterns until next week but I already noticed several things that are spinning theories in my head.

 

[JaraMoser]

We have a mix as well, across the US in the medical space we have seen significant drops for a few clients, some are singular keywords and a few where most or all of a client's keywords took a dive. We also have some client that have seen improvements.

There are also seeing clients with offices in multiple cities where one location has moved down while the other locations are stable.

 

[Austin_Holds]

any noticeable difference between SABs and Pins?

 

[keyserholiday]

Regarding the news that you are now limited to 20 service areas (Google My Business Limits Businesses To 20 Service Areas) coming out today, you think this could be the update to SABs we've been waiting for?

I think the fact that this news was released the same day as volatility stabilized could maybe mean it was more than just a coincidence.

Could your inputted service areas actually make a difference now?

I think it is unrelated based on how many industries were impacted. I don't work with SAB listings and I am seeing location jumping into the map pack and dropping from the map pack. I am also seeing some unclaimed listings showing up as well. I am curious to hear Joy's thoughts on this next week in Boulder.

 

[Rich Owings]

Interesting things happening in organic too. I was looking for a screenshot for a presentation, showing Yelp ranking #1 or #2 for "best whatever in city" and they have dropped across the board.

 

[keyserholiday]

Interesting things happening in organic too. I was looking for a screenshot for a presentation, showing Yelp ranking #1 or #2 for "best whatever in city" and they have dropped across the board.

Rich, I'll hook you up, check your inbox.

 

[BenFisher]

There may be some merit to the SAB change. Back in November of last year they stated that they wanted to help SAB's become as prominent as a storefront. This is almost exactly one year later and we get the limitation to 20 service areas. That with the forced update to remove the radius, sounds like they may have made service areas a ranking factor. (This is all a guess at the moment) - Sounds like a test of adding and removing service areas is what needs to be done.

 

[keyserholiday]

so one of my crappy competitors has recently started adding service areas in GMB for Birck and Mortar listings in an attempt to boost rankings. It has had no impact as of yet and these test listings did not jump into the map pack with this update.

 

[Austin_Holds]

I'll add that most of my listing are SABs, and I've been testing using just the entire city as the service area vs. multiple zips and suburbs. I'm seeing consistent drops for both of them.