# of Clicks on Your Google+ Page Determines Your Ranking?

[Travis Van Slooten]

They are ranking B from my location here in Minneapolis! This is crazy. So all you need to do is get a bunch of clicks to a listing. I wish this stuff didn't work

Darren...I think you should contact this painting company and let them know they owe you something for getting them ranked

Travis

 

[chadkimball]

awesome stuff

 

[Marcus Bowler Hat]

Hey folks, really interesting stuff.

Has anyone got any thoughts on crossover here between 7 pack listings, organic listings or listings on a map search? So, if a site gets more organic clicks and engagement would that further bolster whatever quality signal is propping up the local listing.

Would be interesting to do this experiment again, find someone who is in position F or G but click and engage with their organic listing to see if that makes a difference to the organic or local listing.

Really interesting though but seems ripe for abuse given the basic qualitative checks don't seem to be made (where the click comes from etc).

I wonder if it is pure CTR or if it is more engagement driven (or a combo). CTR just seems a bit odd given the plain jane nature of 7 pack listings. Maybe adding the qualifier here into the name could help drive clicks.

Really makes the case though for the Google+ page being well thought out and populated so it gives folks what they need and drives engagement.

Cheers all
Marcus

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good points Marcus.

Ya this was not a thorough test at all.

Lots of tips for what to do were given and then people just said done.

So we don't know how many just clicked from organic to site or how many went further and clicked to G+ L or to maps or requested directions or anything else. I did a bunch of different things.

So we don't really know WHAT did the trick. Could be just overall engagement and interaction made it look like the business was popular enough to deserve a higher position.

We'd need to do a few more tests.

1 business only clicks from SERPs to site.

2nd business only driving directions.

3rd business a series of things.

Etc.

AND we'd need to control it better and keep the sites private so Google (since they follow this forum) does not intervene somehow. OR so a bunch of 3rd world spammers don't do a bunch of clicks that maybe hurt the results.

 

[Marcus Bowler Hat]

Yep, very cool, would love to be involved in that (I love a good experiment).

 

[jackson_lo]

I'll be damned! Seeing it in position B from Ottawa, Google.com, incognito. Interesting test Darren!

 

[chadkimball]

I already know that this works, but I'd be willing to do some tests if everyone wants.

Can't promise that the tests will be whitehat though.

Let me know

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

Chad:

Since you're asking...I'd love to see some testing done on this. And even if you go gray hat/black hat, I think it would be interesting as it would tell us what sorts of things boost rankings.

Travis

 

[Eric Rohrback]

There has to be some other factors at play here. I'll agree that CTR would show engagement and make the business appear popular in Google's eyes, but i'd like to see a few more stats on this. I think we need to dig into what onsite changes happened and what kind of back-links were found over the course of this test. Would a high authority backlink from another site be able to boost a local listing much or do you think there was something else driving this?

I like Linda's ideas for testing this one again. What other ways should we go about this?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes Eric I agree. Plus we don't know if anything else changed.

I'm pretty sure the listing was bare and unclaimed before. And now it has a nice description that to me looks like a marketing person may have written it. Were the images there before? I don't remember.

Now claiming a listing in and of itself would not boost ranking but if they just happened to get a marketing person that started working on their account right around that time, they could have been building citations and links and other stuff.

So what boosted ranking in this case is really a crap shoot and no way to know.

If we do this again we'd need to do a thorough 'before' analysis. Claimed? How many images and videos. Screenshot of description and cats. Screenshot of home page. Backlink analysis, etc. Then all only do one action like click from SERPs. Then do another test documenting everything and then only request driving directions.

But I don't have any bandwidth right now due to GMB so I can't really set it up or coordinate it.

Plus we already know click-through and stick rates impact ranking to some degree.

I've always suspected one of the reasons you tend to see the same listings in the pack pretty consistently, is if they are in the pack they are getting more play, than the ones that are buried on page 3.

 

[chadkimball]

Chad:

Since you're asking...I'd love to see some testing done on this. And even if you go gray hat/black hat, I think it would be interesting as it would tell us what sorts of things boost rankings.

Travis

anybody got a client site we can test it on? might as well do someone some good while we're at it (of course, client would have to be ok with some experimental techniques)

 

[Marcus Bowler Hat]

What would be the criteria then folks? Maybe someone floating around 10th on a maps search or 7th in a pack of results?

 

[chadkimball]

how about a locksmith listing to test it out on? LOL

 

[ToddB]

I just did a Google search of "denver painters' and I am seeing them at B also.

But if you do a search for "painters denver" they still show in H and it's the exact same setup as Lindas screenshot in post 13. So maybe the manual clicking did improve the ranking for just the keyword everyone searched?

 

[chadkimball]

So maybe the manual clicking did improve the ranking for just the keyword everyone searched?

In my experience, it does seem to be keyword specific. Need to test it more though.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I just did a Google search of "denver painters' and I am seeing them at B also.

But if you do a search for "painters denver" they still show in H and it's the exact same setup as Lindas screenshot in post 13. So maybe the manual clicking did improve the ranking for just the keyword everyone searched?

Good point Todd. I just checked the lead KWs in their title tag:
denver house painter and they don't rank in the page one pack at all.

If we do a test again we should check ranking for the KWs in their title tag and be a little more thorough about the before analysis so we know what they had going in to be sure nothing changed that would have affected the ranking test.

But this was an interesting 1st try.

 

[BrandonLocal18]

My results are slightly different. I am still seeing this business ranked in the F spot. Is everyone else still showing a higher ranking?

 

[Scott Rawlins]

I have them in the F position as well. For both "denver painters" and "painters in denver".

 

[Linda Buquet]

My results are slightly different. I am still seeing this business ranked in the F spot. Is everyone else still showing a higher ranking?

Yep you are right Brandon and Scott. That was a week ago they were B.

Today for "denver painters" with location set to Denver. I see them back in the F spot too.

So either the clicks gave a temporary short boost.

OR it was a short term fluke.

OR Google read this forum and moved them back down to mess with our test.

OR just a normal Google dance and shuffle.

Most likely the latter. I watch Seattle Chiropractor and one site is A one week and knocked out of the pack the next. They just jump in and out constantly. Almost makes me think Google has 2 algos that switch off.
(Cuz it's a spammy listing that should not even be in the pack - so it's like when the less strict algo takes over, they get back in the pack.)

Oh and actually that could have played a small part here. In comparing today's SERPs with the screenshot I took in post 13 at the beginning of this test...

The results are exactly the same, except a total spam listing "Painters In Denver" took over the E spot - geo stuffed cats and all.

Anyway I don't think this test was specific enough to really know or even guess what happened.

 

[Phil Rozek]

You can say "short-term boost" again. Now Highland is on page 2 (in the Maps tab).

From what I see, the name of the game is win those clicks day-in, day-out.