Significant Drop in GBP/Map Views

[LauraY]

Is anyone else experience significant drops in GBP views, especially in Maps? Not all my clients, but 4 of them are reporting about only about a third of what they usually do this week. I'm thinking it has to do with Google removing some data and changing the breakdown of mobile vs desktop.

 

[klharris08]

To help explain this situation, I think it’s very important to explain that Google has confirmed that the “views” metric from old insights to new is getting a very different definition. Below is Google confirming this metric is changing.

• Users who viewed your profile: Number of unique visitors to your profile. A user can be counted a limited number of times if they visit your Business Profile on multiple devices and platforms such as desktop or mobile and Google Maps or Google Search. Per breakdown device and platform, a user can only be counted once a day. Multiple daily visits aren't counted.
  • Since this metric represents the number of unique users, it may be lower than the number of views you find on your Business Profile and in email notifications.
  • Since the metric focuses on views of the Business Profile, as opposed to overall views of the Business on Google, it may also be lower than the number of views you find on your Business Profile and in email notifications.

This means that Google is only counting unique views (which will lower the metric compared to past data) and is only counting views on the Business Profile, not anytime a pin for your client’s business showed up. I think the second piece of this is the major factor driving the massive drop in this KPI. Google used to count as a view anytime your clients pin showed up on a map.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Do you tag your GBP landing pages with UTM parameters? If so, you can check impressions in search console while filtering for pages with "UTM" to see if you can see a similar pattern to what you are seeing in GBP Insights?

If you do see a similar pattern it's likely performance related and if you don't see a similar pattern it's more likely one of the things you mentioned (data issue, bug..etc)