Unique Situation with GBP and Google Maps

[ForwardMotion]

Hello,

I'm seeing a very unique situation happening with GBP and Google Maps for a particular business category. What I am seeing the last couple days is that when I do a search for "private chef (city, state)" that it is bringing up only one business in that area now. It even changes my search from "private chef (city, state)" to the name of this business in this city. Just last week when I would do the same search, it would give me the Google pack with the top 3 businesses and then click for more. That was the same for Organic and Maps. Not the case as of yesterday. Both organic and maps is only giving me this one business now. Why would it change my search on Maps from "private chef (city, state)" to show that I searched for this business by name, when I didn't. I have never seen this before and I'm very curious why this is all of a sudden happening. The other businesses that serve that area are now not showing up except down the page in organic, but GBP and Google Maps only bring up this business now with no other options, even though there are multiple other businesses that serve this area.

Has anyone else seen this? If so, why is this happening? It's like this business all of a sudden has a monopoly on this area now and the others are blocked out. Never seen this before. Would love to hear some feedback on this.

Thanks!

 

[mblumenthal]

While not common it is not unique. This occurs when one business has significantly more relevance for a given search term than the next closest candidate. IE the relevance delta is so large that Google makes the assumption that it is brand that you are looking for.

This happens frequently with name spam and exact match queries. Name is the most powerful driver but it can be caused by categories on important web references, review content, categories on Google, link anchor text, business name and a combination of all of those.

It can occur due to Google turning the dials on relevance or when a business does a really impactful job of increasing that delta. Although as noted, the biggest cause is name spam

 

[ForwardMotion]

While not common it is not unique. This occurs when one business has significantly more relevance for a given search term than the next closest candidate. IE the relevance delta is so large that Google makes the assumption that it is brand that you are looking for.

This happens frequently with name spam and exact match queries. Name is the most powerful driver but it can be caused by categories on important web references, review content, categories on Google, link anchor text, business name and a combination of all of those.

It can occur due to Google turning the dials on relevance or when a business does a really impactful job of increasing that delta. Although as noted, the biggest cause is name spam

Thank you Mike. Good information to know. I had never seen this, so it surprised me. I appreciate your feedback.