Ranking #1 - Only a few days out of a 16 month period in GSC?

[cfazio]

Hello!

I am trying to figure out why GSC shows that some GBP profiles are ranked #1, but only a few days out of a 16 month period.

Why is Google randomly deciding to show this listing on a few days, and completely ignore it for the majority of the time?

When looking at this specific keyword (as pictured above), it has 5400 impressions in organic serp, but the GBP (this site has 2, its a split property with 2 locations), only gets a combined 120 impressions in the same period of time. When Google decides to rank it it is position #1, and has incredible CTR.

Why is the GBP listing not getting nearly as many impressions as the organic serp result?

According to GA, 50% of the users are from the city that the GBP address is in.

I have noticed ranking differences between the national map pack and local map pack, but this does not seem to be the case.

Is this proximity, or filtering, or something else?

Thanks for any input!

 

[Professor M]

The proximity factor on organic searches and local SERPs is very different.
Your client may appear in organic searches in the whole city and suburbs, but we know that for most industries good local pack ranking is near the business address.

There are many other factors related to the users as well.

So the volume is expected to be very different.

 

[cfazio]

The proximity factor on organic searches and local SERPs is very different.
Your client may appear in organic searches in the whole city and suburbs, but we know that for most industries good local pack ranking is near the business address.

There are many other factors related to the users as well.

So the volume is expected to be very different.

Makes sense, I was def leaning towards proximity.

Have an interesting setup where many clients are student housing, so the national map pack is nearly as important as the city-level map pack.

 

[Joey Abna]

As @Professor M mentioned Proximity may be the culprit. I would also look at the non GBP page and look at the Countries and Devices categories in GSC. If Desktop searches are more heavily weighted for the impressions I would dig into why that is as well.

 

[cfazio]

As @Professor M mentioned Proximity may be the culprit. I would also look at the non GBP page and look at the Countries and Devices categories in GSC. If Desktop searches are more heavily weighted for the impressions I would dig into why that is as well.

Good call, will check that out.

I have been finding some interesting stuff with these properties, for example, the national map pack seems to ignore proximity. We have clients ranking in the 20s locally, but 1-3 in the national map pack. I guess it makes sense when you think about it - just interesting how without proximity signals the more optimized websites / GBP comes out on top.