Unrelated Search Queries in Insights/Performance

[georgenenni]

We monitor GBP reporting for hundreds of new car dealers in U.S. and Canada, and for a medium sized Chevy dealer seeing searches for restaurants, Kroger, Walmart in the top search queries? Screenshot attached.

All 10 categories are automotive service related, services look normal, no reviews with restaurant or food keywords, the service department GBP listing is nested in the main sales GBP listing.

Could Google be including map clicks from users searching for other businesses?

Any other ideas?

Thank you for your help and this forum, such a great resource.

-George

 

[keyserholiday]

Do you have any of this content on your website? I know many location pages say where they are located and what businesses they are closed to.

 

[georgenenni]

Do you have any of this content on your website? I know many location pages say where they are located and what businesses they are closed to.

Great question, I doubled checked and they do not. The only thing close is an interactive Google map widget that likely has other businesses embedded. Do you think Google could be sniffing those business names from there?

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hi @georgenenni, I had noticed this a few months ago with one of our clients that has very high traffic and unrelated keywords showing up in GBP and came across these two similar threads:

Spammy keyword showing up in GMB searches is it a bot? | Google Business Profile (GBP) & Google Maps

I am wondering if anyone is seeing this keyword in their GMB searches "workers compensation attorney chicagoaccidentattorney.net" I now have it in two of my clients profiles see attached photo. Is this something that is bot-generated or is it possible that my clients specifically are being...

localsearchforum.com

GMB Insight Showing Completely Irrelevant Search Terms | NAP, Categories, Dashboard Data

Please look at the screenshot. Why would GMB insight show my client business for these irrelevant search terms? Doesn't make any sense. The business is in video production and Internet marketing niche.

localsearchforum.com

The 2nd one is a bit older but still applicable and it seems this issue has been around awhile. Anyways, the advice that was given that I took to heart was whether the same keyword phrases were showing up in GSC, mentioned by both @Justin Mosebach and @Phil Rozek. They were not showing up in GSC and also seems to be a rather transient issue and non-repeating.

 

[keyserholiday]

I will add that keyword ranking reports can also increase search queries. I don’t you have a ranking report set up to include those keywords, but it can alter your other keyword impressions.

 

[Joey Abna]

I started noticing address searches and nearby business searches showing up in the Insights Report for clients that were running Local Campaigns on Google. Also, with Performance Max I see these types of searches showing up as well.

I'm not sure but I think any appearance of a business in the maps gets recorded by Google. So, if your business is near places that get searched for alot or served in Local or Performance Max ads the numbers could get inflated making this irrelevant searches appear in your Insights data.

 

[keyserholiday]

It appears the Goog is broken and wants to supply us with useless information.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

I started noticing address searches and nearby business searches showing up in the Insights Report for clients that were running Local Campaigns on Google. Also, with Performance Max I see these types of searches showing up as well.

I'm not sure but I think any appearance of a business in the maps gets recorded by Google. So, if your business is near places that get searched for alot or served in Local or Performance Max ads the numbers could get inflated making this irrelevant searches appear in your Insights data.

That is a really good point!

 

[JS Girard]

I started noticing address searches and nearby business searches showing up in the Insights Report for clients that were running Local Campaigns on Google. Also, with Performance Max I see these types of searches showing up as well.

I'm not sure but I think any appearance of a business in the maps gets recorded by Google. So, if your business is near places that get searched for alot or served in Local or Performance Max ads the numbers could get inflated making this irrelevant searches appear in your Insights data.

I thought that only affected the impressions stats. If it does mess with the keyword stats, there is going to be a LOT of grumbling!

 

[georgenenni]

Speaking of Performance Max ads, yes seeing strange landing page choices from Google's new black box happy meal, including blog and content pages for branding pmax ads. Very strange.

@JeffClevelandTN thanks for your threads, they made me think of another explanation, curious if anyone supports this theory: We all land into maps based on some type of search query. Perhaps someone is looking for the nearby Kroger, but then explore maps a bit, sees a car dealer, clicks on the listing, and deep links to dealer website. Wouldn't this GBP click be based on "Kroger near me" search query?

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Yes,

Speaking of Performance Max ads, yes seeing strange landing page choices from Google's new black box happy meal, including blog and content pages for branding pmax ads. Very strange.

@JeffClevelandTN thanks for your threads, they made me think of another explanation, curious if anyone supports this theory: We all land into maps based on some type of search query. Perhaps someone is looking for the nearby Kroger, but then explore maps a bit, sees a car dealer, clicks on the listing, and deep links to dealer website. Wouldn't this GBP click be based on "Kroger near me" search query?

After @Joey Abna post, I'm thinking something similar to that too. We are going to do some testing with some of our seasonal GBP clients with some map searches using keywords for nearby businesses over a period of a few weeks. We'll zoom in on the map to make sure our client's GBP shows up and see if the keywords are displayed in GBP performance tab. We'll do some other variations too. Just got to remember to put it into our workflow starting next week

 

[klharris08]

My best guess as to how these unrelated keywords drive impressions for your businesses is when Google builds a map for "restaurants" and you are a car dealership, because the map is now interactive, if your business has a pin, you get an impression. Your business pin can show when Google builds a map for an unrelated query where you are a prominent location.