Significant G+ Local Ranking Shifts

[Gloria Gunn]

Sure thing Linda- Just sent it- Hope it helps!

Thanks,

Gloria

 

[Marie Haynes]

Thought I would add our situation to the discussion in case it helps. We have been #1 Local beneath 3 organic listings for ages now and also #6 organic. A couple of days ago we jumped up to #2 organic and retained the #1 local as well.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Awesome Marie. Good to hear from you again!

Is that for your real estate listing or one of your other businesses?

 

[Marie Haynes]

Hi Linda!

This is for the original real estate listing that you helped me with a few years ago. We're ranking really well for our suburb.

Strange things are happening for our rankings for the big city as well. Last week we jumped up from #16 organic for to #6 organic and have now popped down to #11.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ya I think she's trying to push out an update and things might be a little unstable til it settles in. I'm so busy that I'm not going to investigate a whole lot more and try to figure it out until it stabilizes a little.

 

[Ruslan Krastev]

Checking around today in the Lawyer landscapes I have seen a lot of movement for local in the SERP's. Today I am seeing a lot of new players, some completely gone, and others that were ranking well moved down.

I have absolutely the same observations for the lawyer landscape in Louisville, KY.

 

[Dustybones]

Have been talking with staff and here is what has changed on our side

1. All old places dashboards have converted over to the new dashboard.
2. Duplicates from old places dashboard are now showing in the new dashboard marked as duplicates.
3. Old listings in Map Maker once marked closed reverted back to being open
4. Map Markers moving around. Different addresses showing at the same location.

Now dealing with duplicates and cleaning up the new dash board.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Dusty!

Re dupes in new dash wanted to be sure you saw this:

Warning Email re Google Places Duplicate Listings

Google is coming out with a detailed statement about it - should be today.

 

[Dustybones]

@ Linda: Thanks....Just caught that..

 

[21Development]

I've yet to see a listing (where I previously hadn't) that wasn't an EMD or have keywords added to the title. I think you're onto something with it being a function of the recent guideline changes. As a test, I added "Local SEO" to the end of my biz name. I'll share what I find. Either way, it seems like the dial was CRANKED up on the value of the title.

Just an update to my reply above:
After adding "Local SEO" to my business title in G+ (places old dashboard), I rank #1 or #2 for local seo *colorado-city-name*. I made no other changes to my listing or website. Interesting indeed. It did take about 10 days to see the edits take. Going to see how this develops more before adding to client listings.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Interesting, what was the ranking previously?

Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

 

[21Development]

Interesting, what was the ranking previously?

Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

Well, the local 7 pack didn't show up until these changes took place. Prior to the change, I was 3-5 organic. When the changes took place, my local listing was outside the 7pack at #23 and organic was 11.

I have not seen movement on ANY other local seo listing for my area.

 

[Linda Buquet]

After adding "Local SEO" to my business title in G+ (places old dashboard), I rank #1 or #2 for local seo *colorado-city-name*.

Prior to the change, I was 3-5 organic. When the changes took place, my local listing was outside the 7pack at #23 and organic was 11.

Sorry confused. 1st you said you ranked one or 2 after the change.

But you said now you rank #23?

So are you saying there was an initial jump and then you tanked?

(In the 1st quote above I'm not sure if the #1/2 is organic or Pack?)

 

[21Development]

Sorry confused. 1st you said you ranked one or 2 after the change.

But you said not you rank #23?

So are you saying there was an initial jump and then you tanked?

(In the 1st quote above I'm not sure if the #1/2 is organic or Pack?)

Sorry for the confusion:

Before the "ranking shift" took place, I was between #3-6 organic and there was no local pack.

When the local pack started showing up, around the same time as this thread started, I was 11 organic, and #23 in local/map listings.

I made the change to my listing on the old places dashboard. The old listing was "21Development". The new listing is "21Development - Local SEO".

I'm currently #1-#5 in most of the local cities/suburbs surrounding Denver. Haven't run an updated BL report.

I'm interested in what results others have seen in tests to either their listing or a clients' listing with the new guideline changes. Maybe I was just lucky and it was another factor that caused the jump.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ahhh, that helps clarify and is very interesting but not surprising.

I'm assuming Google still heavily (and wrongly IMO) weighs the name in the algo.

I still would not recommend running out and doing it in most cases, for reasons I can't say.

QUESTION - When you added the KWs did it make you re-verify?

 

[21Development]

Agreed - not exactly surprising, but I'm still stunned at the quickness and the huge jump.

It did not make me re-verify.

 

[MattH]

Hi everyone,

New to the forum -- I was very eager to post about this, but wanted to wait a few more days in hopes of stabilized rankings in the carousel. Alas, no luck though. Here's my experience with this:

One of my clients is a pretty large hotel brand, with about 60 locations across the US. All had decent carousel inclusion for all primary keywords, longtail iterations, etc. Very pleased.

Then, during the first week in March, many of the hotels' rankings within the carousel just tanked. Not even tanked, disappeared actually. This coincided with the new guideline about being able to add a geo-specific descriptor to the business name.

I did not add any descriptors to the hotels' names. Rankings still fell, and am seeing a lot of hotels in the carousel that either added the city name, or it was always there in the business name.

Now here's the interesting part. Within this hotel brand, exists two subbrands, where there are multiple locations by the same name, and they always needed to be distinguished by adding the city's name after the brand. In other words, each property has it's own name, except for these two subbrands, which have multiple locations under the same name. For example:

hotel name, san francisco
hotel name, san diego
hotel name, dallas
hotel name, philadelphia

These hotels are doing better than ever within the carousel. I am crossing my fingers that this is temporary. I'm seeing spammy listings where hotel aggregation sites are appearing in the carousel by adding geo-specific keywords to their business name and linking to an optimized page on their site.

Not cool Google, not cool at all.

As a test, I went into Google Places (old dashboard) and added Boston to the end of a hotel name. Based on what Linda knows (what is she keeping from us?!! ) this is a bad idea, but I did it before I read all of these forum posts. The name hasn't changed yet, but I will keep everyone posted. Until then, traffic from local search is down for about 25% of properties.

Not really asking for help, per se (although suggestions are welcome!) just wanted to add my 2 cents and recent experience with this potential local search algo tweak

Cheers, and nice to be aboard like minded local lovers,
Matt


Additional info: hotel brand recently (mid-feb) began using yext. normalized all listings by adding "a [hotel brand] hotel" after hotel name, against advice. This includes newly updated Google places data file. Since it's delineated with a comma, there shouldnt be any citation issues.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey Matt, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined us.

And thanks for posting your insights on this. Let us know after the name change. So far most I've heard about have said it didn't seem to have an effect.

(What I know is not earth shattering and does not mean you should not add a descriptor. Was just cautioning those that might do it willy nilly, just cuz Google says you can - without thinking it through.)

 

[MattH]

I have been crunching some numbers regarding how many of my competitors have the city name in their business title. Whether this has always been the case, or if it represents a sudden increase after prior to the upgraded guidelines, I do not know.

Anyway, on average, 67% of businesses in my industry have some iteration of the city name in the business title. I feel at a disadvantage for not making my listing look spammy by adding geo-specific keywords to my business. Ugh, opinions? Of course, there are other factors, but this is a method that seems to be getting results.

Just a small set of numbers. From the keyword "hotels in boston" 12 out of 18 (66.66%) include the city name.

Hotel Name	Local Rank
boston harbor hotel	1
harborside inn	2
intercontinental boston	3
boston park plaza	4
the westin boston waterfront	5
lenox hotel	6
omni parker house	7
seaport boston hotel	8
renaissance boston waterfront	9
doubletree by hilton boston	10
hotel commonwealth	11
revere hotel boston common	12
boston common hotel	13
colonnade boston hotel	14
taj boston	15
ames hotel	16
the fairmont copley plaza	17
club quarters in boston	18

<colgroup><col><col></colgroup><tbody>
</tbody>

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes with hotels it's a different issue. Many of them include city AND for many of them city is even part of the name.

In fact I think the main reason the guideline was changed was specifically for large hotel chains.

So yes if I was a hotel I would probably add city.

But in most cases, single location regular business, not hotel chain, I'd think hard before making a change.