Ranking Drops for Service Area Businesses

[julie-b]

I have already brought this problem to the community (Client's business profile suddenly not visible on desktop and dropped significantly on mobile - Google Business Profile Community)

My locksmith client's profile (KLS Locks) is no longer visible at all on desktop (although his profile is not suspended) and it has dropped over 30 places on mobile. Before this issue, he was usually appearing ~ #2 on desktop and mobile for 'locksmith Orpington'. He is a service area business with no address visible.

When I brought this problem to the community (Client's business profile suddenly not visible on desktop and dropped significantly on mobile - Google Business Profile Community), it was suggested that maybe because he has another business profile (Google Maps) the service area locations may be overlapping and causing a problem. I have tried to separate out the service areas to rule this out. However, my client was getting very worried about the large drop in business and decided to remove the second GBP (Google Maps)

I'm just worried that there's still something wrong with his main profile. He is losing a lot of business because of this and would be very grateful for your help.

 

[Wendy Moon]

If you do make the change and get suspended, it is taking 22 days to get reinstated. Google should have this fixed before you are able to get reinstated.

Sigh, Thanks. It's just really frustrating.

 

[keyserholiday]

I just heard another business is back to ranking in their area today.

 

[Wendy Moon]

I have two clients that have experienced this bug.

One is an electrician, their rankings returned to normal on 9/29 without any action being taken.

The other is a carpet cleaning service. They were caught up in the Kansas bug last year- after several attempts to contact support, we opted to add his address on the dashboard, got suspended, and then reinstated. They returned to maps, but not in the three-pack as they were before.

This time I contacted support and got a canned reply- I replied to that email requesting that they add the address to the backend. I got a phone call from GBP support and tried without success to explain, but all I could get from the rep were suggestions on how I could rank higher on Google. He did say that an address was included on the backend. We still have a verified listing that appears nowhere when I search for "carpet cleaners" or "carpet cleaning" in their city. I am tempted to try adding the address and getting suspended again- any suggestions?

My carpet cleaner just got his former ranking back! Thanks to everybody for their input on this!

 

[AndrewbTree]

I originally set up about 6 years ago from a postal annex, that's a place that ships parcels, and has mailboxes. I get all my mail from there. Anyway I've been #1 on the maps for many years in my community. About June, the manager took the address down and put up a local area, very wide, the whole San Diego County. Three days ago, I am not visible on the map at all for the main key word, on any pages. I haven't been suspended, but I tried to login to my account from the wrong email, and google couldn't even find the business at all. My marketing guy says I need to get an office, and list it as an address, but I want some other perspectives. Did I just lose ranking, or am I toast for good, in your opinion? I will say I DO rank, at the very bottom, for one long tail arcane keyword.

 

[julie-b]

Thanks for the quick reply. It is just the local pack rankings that have dropped, organic rankings are still doing very well.

 

[JoyHawkins]

What date did you notice the drop?​

 

[julie-b]

Drop in traffic around 7th September

 

[AndrewbTree]

I think this is the third thread I've seen saying they can't find themselves anywhere.

Is the listing still live on Maps? If so, can you link to it?

Can you confirm the last date you saw yourself ranking for the keywords you're referring to?

This is not a thread you saw before; I am new here.

The listing is still live, but it isn't on maps, for the most part. Here is the link to it: Andy’s Tree Service.

If a person does a search for tree service escondido, I do not show up on the map. For that search term I was #1 for many years. Also if you search Andy's Tree Service in the address bar, my map page does not show up either. This happened I think last Thursday or thereabouts.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I merged the 2 threads about this same topic so there is one place where people can compare notes. I had someone message me about something similar and I'll ask them to weigh in here. It looks like you both experienced the drop in the last 5-6 days. This does correlate with the date range for the Useful Content Update so it's possible that's what is going on here.

 

[julie-b]

KLS Locks was suspended back in June 2021 - so not recently. He was reinstated fairly quickly.

 

[Jezcor]

I think this is the third thread I've seen saying they can't find themselves anywhere.

Is the listing still live on Maps? If so, can you link to it?

Can you confirm the last date you saw yourself ranking for the keywords you're referring to?

Hi Joy,

We are also experiencing similar issues where we are not showing up at all in Local Pack.

The listing is live on maps. Here it is: North State Garage Doors, Llc

I can confirm the issue started Friday 09/09/2022 so we were showing up before then.

 

[keyserholiday]

I had a SAB contact me that they are no longer showing up. He reached out on the 7th. I can get his KP to trigger in Pasadena, but not when I change my location to Beaverton. Instead, I get a similarly named business instead that has their address showing.

 

[Amy Toman]

@JoyHawkins This SAB listing stopped appearing in the local pack last week or so. The listing doesn't appear for listing title + location, nor when geo is set for the GBP registration address.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Are you guys tracking ranking from a single point? Grid rank trackers are not showing the same decline that appears when you're scanning from a single location. I'm actually even seeing increases in some for our listing when I look at grid tracking.

Also, do the keywords you're checking use geomodifiers? Ie: Plumber Toronto vs just Plumber

 

[Jezcor]

Are you guys tracking ranking from a single point? Grid rank trackers are not showing the same decline that appears when you're scanning from a single location. I'm actually even seeing increases in some for our listing when I look at grid tracking.

Also, do the keywords you're checking use geomodifiers? Ie: Plumber Toronto vs just Plumber

Massive drops too on Local Search Grid (brightlocal) showing 21+ for every single point and it shows a -18.3 decline change.

Using city modifier and near me modifier.

 

[JoyHawkins]

@JoyHawkins This SAB listing stopped appearing in the local pack last week or so. The listing doesn't appear for listing title + location, nor when geo is set for the GBP registration address.

There is definitely something wrong with this listing. The Knowledge Panel is missing street view along with the little blurb at the top that says the city and category you're in. Every listing with an address + pin should have this.

 

[Adam Di Frisco]

Are you guys tracking ranking from a single point? Grid rank trackers are not showing the same decline that appears when you're scanning from a single location. I'm actually even seeing increases in some for our listing when I look at grid tracking.

Also, do the keywords you're checking use geomodifiers? Ie: Plumber Toronto vs just Plumber

I've checked with and without geomodifiers from a single point. Out of my two SABs, both have completely dropped out of maps for "service+location" but still show up for branded search.

 

[Beth Evans]

I'm hearing a few cases like this lately and I'm starting to wonder if it's related to the algorithm updates. Analyzing ranking drops is really time consuming and needs a pretty in-depth knowledge of the site, business, and competitors so I'm hesitant to offer advice on this. I would suggest looking to see if their organic ranking dropped as well or if it's just the local pack rankings.

I was wondering this too. My listing disappeared on the organic search by keywords on Sept 6th. I went from always coming up to totally disappearing.

 

[Jezcor]

I’m having the same problem. My listing went from number one that would come up when searching for “house cleaning in fort smith, ar,” to now it’s nowhere to be found. I noticed this issue on Sept. 6th. I have asked and tried to get information as to what it could be. My listing is not suspended, I can still pull it up on maps but it will not pull up doing any kind of organic search. This is very stressful when you rely on those listings to get business. It’s a real stress for me.

We are on the same page. It's incredibly frustrating. Lets hope for the best and keep digging.