Routinely Changing GMB Descriptions

[Laustin1878]

Has anyone experimented with changing descriptions in GMB on a monthly or quarterly basis and tracked rankings?

I have a seasonal client and thought about changing the description to suit the service they are trying to push most, based on the time of year. Most importantly, is this something that can cause a problem or penalty?

My thought is to serve better and more timely information to potential prospects. Typically, every 3-4 weeks I'll add an image or change one out. Haven't seen any negative impacts from this but I certainly don't want to trip any filters or raise any red flags.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Have important thoughts on that. But up to eyeballs in alligators.

More later.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Google said that the business description is not a ranking factor. However, that was back in 2012. I'm sure lots has changed since that comment was made.

I don't have any research put together but I am curious to see what Linda has cooking.

You mention adding or removing an image every now and then, where are you changing that? Did you figure out a sweet trick to add images to a GMB Description?

 

[Laustin1878]

I was going off the notion of a poke type event the way you were able to do it in Google Places. I just thought about it today and was wondering if anyone has practiced this. It would a) help keep the profile active showing G that we are still here, b) it would keep the information current for the season. I just don't know if Google frowns upon continually changing the description. Of course, it's not a manipulation thing but just keeping things current.

I usually change an image in GMB and sometimes, the Google+ page. Unfortunately, I have not found any tricks to add an image to a GMB description. Although, that does sound pretty cool.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

We routinely log into GMB accounts and make a null edit and/or check to see if Google had made any bad auto edits. We have been doing it for several years. Mike just posted an interesting blog on this topic.

 

[heckler]

From the testing we've done (over the last 2 years), if business descriptions matter at all in GMB it is only by proxy (through user interaction).

The content of them certainly doesn't have any statistically significant affect on rankings.

.02,

 

[Linda Buquet]

We routinely log into GMB accounts and make a null edit and/or check to see if Google had made any bad auto edits. We have been doing it for several years. Mike just posted an interesting blog on this topic.

And on same topic Mike was talking about, I had an earlier post about the same topic and talked about "poking" listings as I've advised in training for years. (Mike called it null edit in his post, same thing.)

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local/32820-google-un-verifying-gmb-listings-inactive-6-months.html">Is Google Un-Verifying GMB Listings that are Inactive for 6 Months?</a>

I agree with Colan and Brian about desc not being a ranking factor.

Now if Dragon will cooperate, may have a long one. Let's see what kind of mood he's today. (I got new headset and bought the latest version of D, but have not had time to install yet.)

Okay so the first caution I was going to give is not to tweak your description too often. It's considered a spam signal and I've seen folks get suspended and when they asked support why, they were told that was why. So that's part of the reason, in the training you took Luke, I stress toward the beginning, to gather everything in a word doc. Proof everything, work through your description, figure out your categories, get everything perfect - so you can login and make one edit and change everything in one fell swoop. (Well not one edit session, but importantly 2 diff edit sessions as I explained in training. But don't have time to go into now and it's a little off this subject and is more about not triggering verification in a way that will hold up important edits, waste your time or cause PINs to be invalid.)

That isn't to say you can't change the description occasionally, especially if seasonality is an issue or something changes with the business. That's simply to say don't keep tweaking - because that's what spammers do.

I've seen people that aren't local search pros and, but pretend to be, say: "You need to keep changing up your Places description and your images all the time, because Google loves fresh content. Fresh content – for your website, yes - but not a great idea for GMB.

So that's my advice. Change as necessary, but try to avoid unnecessary tweaking.

 

[CodyBaird]

There are many better uses of your time imo. Heckler made the best point for manipulating ranking...activity to the profile, visits to page, map requests or driving directions, +'s, views etc. All which can be manipulated if you want to learn those tricks.

I would spend the time improving site, not just content, or on page but also technical aspects that make it faster.

 

[Linda Buquet]

True Cody!

And the other thing I meant to mention is that...

Google is making it so hard to even get to the G+ L page now that I doubt hardly anyone will see the description anyway. So another reason not to put too much energy into the page.