Weird results for "dispensary near me"

[HoosierBuff]

Here is a weird one. I have a client in Spokane, WA, and when I do a Google search (using brightlocals local results checker), I get this map result.

The map results shows no dispensaries in Spokane, shows one actual dispensary in Walla Walla, and a whole bunch of results in seattle. Organic results (below the map) show actual spokane results.

"pot dispensary near me" does a very similar thing, but, "marijuana dispensary" is pretty much right on target.

What I can't fathom is:
- I get that "dispensary" is not specific, but, even it weren't, why would Seattle and other listings show up?
- The Walla wall dispensary that shows up, doesn't say dispensary anywhere on the site (though, with 6 locations, they do have a huge advantage in links)

Any thoughts on why this is so wacky?

 

[Yan Gilbert]

I did a few searches. I am seeing completely different results for "pot dispensary near me" and "pot dispensary". Without the 'near me' addition, I get results from Spokane, with 'near me' I see listings from Seattle dominating.

Going to take a quick guess and say that nothing in Spokane is optimized for 'near me'. The algorithm doesn't understand what 'near me', it's just another keyword to match on.

 

[HoosierBuff]

Yan - My clients site has the address everywhere, has schema and everything else. Do you think using "near me" in metas would help here? I thought that didn't work?

 

[Yan Gilbert]

You can test it out a few ways....
- put a few 'near me' phrases on the home page (add it to the Title if you want to be aggressive)
- Create a new page entitled 'Spokane Pot Dispensary Near Me', and link it once from the home page with an anchor of 'near me' for example.

See what happens.

 

[HoosierBuff]

You can test it out a few ways....
- put a few 'near me' phrases on the home page (add it to the Title if you want to be aggressive)
- Create a new page entitled 'Spokane Pot Dispensary Near Me', and link it once from the home page with an anchor of 'near me' for example.

See what happens.

Thanks Yan! I will give this a try and see what it does. I will let you know what I find.

 

[HoosierBuff]

Ok, interesting: Google is now showing accurate results for this query, as if the bug is fixed.

Sadly, my client's profile is not showing up, so something more to work on, but, the results are all now definitely nearby (whereas Seattle was showing up before)

 

[j_holtslander]

I've been seeing quite a few of those lately too here in BC.