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.

 

[Ryanmu]

The phone call was no more fruitful than email... I got a script about Relevance, prominence, and distance.
Be careful with getting suspended- It COULD make things worse...

It is with great shock and relief that I can say my listing is finally visible in search again. Showing up for key words as well as branded search.

 

[keyserholiday]

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

 

[Sledgehammer SEO]

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.

Google is harsh harsh harsh on Locksmiths. My guess is any attempt to keyword modify with a city name, these days Google is going to manually suppress or suspend the profile. Just my 2¢.

 

[keyserholiday]

Google is harsh harsh harsh on Locksmiths. My guess is any attempt to keyword modify with a city name, these days Google is going to manually suppress or suspend the profile. Just my 2¢.

This is unrelated to this thread. This thread was about how SABs lost all rankings and visibility on September 7th. This was a bug on Google's end which is either fixed or almost fixed.
I too am seeing how some industries that are known to spam the snot out of Google time and time again and being filtered out for their simple and blackhat tactics. They will have to rely on real SEO strategies if they want to rank and not get filtered out.

 

[Desnr]

FYI for any other business owners following this thread, mine has finally been reinstated a month after the bug appeared.

 

[Bas_L]

FYI for any other business owners following this thread, mine has finally been reinstated a month after the bug appeared.

Where’s your location?

 

[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!

 

[keyserholiday]

I was looking into a review issue for a friend and mine and as I was searching in Los Angeles for Doulas, I had two results for businesses that are not located in California.

 

[keyserholiday]

I think I found the worst example. I was looking into the map pack placement being pushed down the page on desktop for medical queries. As I was looking at the results for dental implants with IP being set to Atlanta, GA, I found this profile. They are ranking in Atlanta, but located near San Jose, Costa Rica!