Local SEO penalty?

[GrueBleenAgency]

Hi Moz Community

We are in a unique position. We just launched a new site for a client. The site was doing fine before but it wasn't very user friendly. We created a site with almost identical architecture and content as the last one, just new design and layout.

Within 5 days, the site dropped off of LOCAL search almost completely, it now ranks on the 9th page in Austin Texas. (reliantplumbingdotcom). Every other location (Dallas, LA, Philadelphia, Houston) all show the site on the first page for relevant keywords (Austin Plumbers, Austin Plumber)

I have no idea what to think about this and don't know if we're being penalized somehow (checked GSC and no manual penalty) I have never experienced a site being blacklisted locally but well ranked everywhere else. Thoughts?

[ClaytonJ]

very interesting thread. Is there an update?

Reviewed same and though the links stand out. Am inclined to believe as google amps up the power of GMB. It is more address proximity on map that is skewing the outcome. Lakeway is simply a little too far out of Austin.

[GrueBleenAgency]

Hi Team,

We super appreciate everyone's insights. I agree that at this point it makes the most sense to get individual help. The collective power of the thoughts of your expert team have been super helpful. We will take steps to do some fixes while also continually looking into alternative theories/solutions.

Thank you all for your help and thoughts towards the matter. When we initially posted we didn't know how much people would care to evaluate the issue so this is a nice surprise in terms of the response value/time that was put into this question.

Super appreciative - Josh

[MiriamEllis]

Marie - how awesome of you to stop by! I am a fan

Did you notice that GrueBleen mentioned in their original post that there are no penalties showing in GSC? Clearly, the links are bad, but like you, I can't explain the SERP behavior for Austin-only users.

GrueBleen, you're getting weigh-ins here from some amazing experts, and as no one has been able to pinpoint the exact cause of the weird SERP behavior, I think you're at the point where hiring a consultant for a full audit is likely necessary. Many ranking problems are easy to solve, but what you've presented here is unusual. In the scope of a forum, we can't fully audit every aspect of a business (history, technical issues, usability, local, etc.). You need someone to do this to see if they can connect the dots between the Austin-only behavior and something the business is doing/failing to do.

[MarieHaynes]

Most likely, yes.

However, if the content on the pages that were redirected is the same as it was in the past, Google can sometimes apply a hidden canonical. In other words, lets say that the old domain used to be their main site and they built unnatural links to a page called /services. Now let's say that there is a page on the new site called /service_offerings. The content is the same as the old and the old is redirected to the new.

In that case, Google can often recognize that those old links, even if the redirect is removed, should be counting towards the new page.

I'd still want to disavow to make it even more likely that Google stops counting the quality of those links towards this site.

If you do remove the redirects though, it can take a few months to start seeing the benefits, so it will be a hard thing to test. I'd remove the redirects AND disavow. And in a case like this I'd recommend regularly doing link audits to find new unnatural links that the link aggregator tools have missed.

[JoyHawkins]

Marie,

Since the links are pointed at a different domain that 301s to their site, would removing the 301 (killing the domain) be sufficient or do they still need to file a disavow?

[MarieHaynes]

Hi. Joy asked me to take a look at this as it's an unusual ranking situation.

While I agree that it is unusual for an organic filter to suppress rankings in just one location, I think that the egregious backlink profile of this site cannot be ignored.

If this is related to backlinks (which I think is quite likely), it's likely not a location issue, but rather, the anchor text of the unnatural links is holding the site back. And...the majority of the anchors use some form of the words "plumbing" and "austin".

I know what you're thinking...Penguin is supposed to just ignore unnatural links, not penalize for them. However, there are two things that I think we should consider here.

First, John Mueller recently said that unnatural links can impair a site's ability to rank somewhat. There are algorithms outside of Penguin that look at link quality. If they see that there are a large number of links that go against Google's guidelines, they can choose to put less trust in all of your links.

When asked whether unnatural links can hurt a site algorithmically, John said, "“That can definitely be the case. So it’s something where our algorithms when we look at it and they see, oh, there are a bunch of really bad links here. Then maybe they’ll be a bit more cautious with regards to the links in general for the website. So if you clean that up, then the algorithms look at it and say, oh, there’s– there’s kind of– it’s OK. It’s not bad.”

But wait...if this is the case, then why would only the Austin rankings be affected?

This is a long read, but a good one. Bill Slawski wrote about a Google patent that looks at link quality. That patent talks about how pages can be devalued for a particular query if there are a large number of links that are never clicked upon. I know it sounds crazy...it's worth taking the time to read it. Also, it's a patent so we don't know whether Google is using it, but if they are, it is built for cases like this.

The only thing that I can't fully explain is why this is only happening for searches from Austin. I think it's conceivably possible that if the patent mentioned above is being used in this case, that the system can detect that there was an attempt to manipulate rankings for Austin searches and therefore, it is suppressing the ability to rank there.

I haven't looked into the website at all...just the backlinks, but this is one of the more manipulative backlink profiles I've seen in a while. We had a similar case about a year ago where we audited the links and disavowed about 70% of a site's link profile. The links were quite similar to yours in the sense that they were low quality links anchored with a keyword plus the city name in which they wanted to rank. Within two months of filing the disavow, we started to see a nice uplift and it has continued to grow (see image).

The first thing I would do is check for the presence of a manual action. Do this in Search Console. You'll see Manual Actions in the left sidebar. If there's no manual action, I'd go straight to disavowing. Be extremely aggressive as the only cases where I have seen improvements after disavowing are ones where we dramatically cut out as much of the unnatural linking as possible. Even if there is something else going on such as a technical issue, these backlinks can't be ignored. While most sites do not need to disavow these days, this one, in my opinion does!

mhc-disavow-links-case.jpg

[MiriamEllis]

GrueBleen,

Just spoke with one of our top organic SEO folks here at Moz (Dr. Pete) and he agreed it would be strange that an organic penalty would only affect users in Austin. So, while I agree that the link anchor text of your links is something you need to be looking at because it's believed that Google devalues (more than penalizes) such links, the mystery continues!

Tom Waddington's idea is also definitely worth looking at. Good idea reaching out to him, Joy!

[JoyHawkins]

Tom Waddington (one of the smartest people I know) pointed out, most of the spammy backlinks are pointing to a domain (reliant-plumbing.com) that is redirecting to your site.  Why don't you kill that domain (make it 404) and see if it fixes this?

[GrueBleenAgency]

Thank you both for your awesome thoughts, this has been such an interesting question that we ourselves are so stumped on. Please update as you find out more!

[MiriamEllis]

I had noticed this as well, Joy, but somehow, it doesn't satisfy me that this would somehow exclude the client organically ONLY for Austin searchers. If that were the root of the problem, would it not be affecting organic rankings across the board? To me, the link anchor text seemed like a possible explanation until I asked myself that question.

I'll see if I can get one of our organic SEOs to weigh in on whether Google could exclude something only in a specific area.

[JoyHawkins]

I believe I found the problem on why they rank nowhere organically (not in the top 100) and it's likely hurting their local ranking as well outside their immediate area.  They have 97 referring domains with the anchor text "austin plumbers" and another 91 with "austin plumber".  The sites appear to be a giant PBN.  I'd suggest they do a very thorough link audit and file a disavow.

[MiriamEllis]

Joy, I searched from the zip using Bright Local and was not seeing the client come up at all. So glad you stopped by

[JoyHawkins]

Hey GrueBleenAgency,

What tool are you using to track rankings?  Do you have the tool set to search from "austin" or from a specific zip code?  The reason why I ask is that searching from a city has been known to return really innacurate results since Google almost always knows the zip code of the searcher (usually about 90% of the time) so they don't default to a city, they default to a zip code or sometimes a very precise location if the person is using mobile.

Have you actually seen a decline in traffic or impressions according to GMB Insights?

I do actually get you for "austin plumber" when I search from your location as first in the local pack.  Organically you are way down but it's because Google is listing your emergency plumbing page which is a much weaker page vs your homepage.  Looking at the title tags, both your homepage and your emergency page are optimized for extremely similar keywords so I'd try and differentiate this more.  I'd optimize the homepage for generic plumbing terms (plumber, plumber near me) and make sure all references to emergency link to the emergency page.  Some solid internal linking will help here too.

Using the Local Falcon, it shows you ranking as expected and I have a strong suspicion you didn't actually have a ranking drop on the local pack end but just need to update the settings on the ranking tracker to make sure you're not searching on a city-level.

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/3904914/1a5bb0a17deab2755bf9f579048e93a9

[GrueBleenAgency]

Awesome thanks for the thorough response!

1. Thanks for checking this. Yes they are outside the limits but i has never been an issue before and nationally obviously this isn't hurting them.

4. I know...weird right?! The discrepancy is mind boggling.

5. This whole issue started because they did exactly that, they google'd themselves from work and they didn't show up so I'm fairly certain its a proximity issue. However I have googled them from San Antonio (closest big city outside of Austin) and they show up page one. So it's pretty much everywhere but Austin and a 30 mile radius.

At a loss for the discrepancy. Made some content changes to hopefully offset it a bit - Josh

[MiriamEllis]

Thank you for the replies to my questions. I'm just going to start jotting things down here:

1. Your client is outside of the Austin city limits. The location is the quite a bit west of the city boundary, as perceived by Google: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Austin,+TX/@30.3172704,-97.91144,11z/data=!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x8644b599a0cc032f:0x5d9b464bd469d57a!2sAustin,+TX!3b1!8m2!3d30.267153!4d-97.7430608!3m4!1s0x8644b599a0cc032f:0x5d9b464bd469d57a!8m2!3d30.267153!4d-97.7430608

2. I mention this, because Google is fairly biased towards physical location, and a business outside of city borders is not one I'd typically expect to see ranking well locally, unless there was little competition. Organically, I might see them ranking however. So, I'm walking into this not really expecting your client to rank well locally, and I just want to mention that.

3. Using BrightLocal's rank checker tool and setting my zip to the zip code at Google's perceived center of Austin (78701) I am unable to find your client in the first 10 pages of the organic results for "austin plumbers". You mentioned you are seeing them on page 9 from another tool. I just can't find them at all.

4. Yet, when I search from my own location in California for this same term, your client is #1 in the local pack and #2 organically (just below Yelp). So, for non-Austin-based searchers,your client is doing extremely well. And, this comes as a bit of a surprise to me, given what I said above about them being beyond city limits. To have overcome this, the site must be doing something right to be so dominant!

5. So, now, the frustrating part of this. It has long been observed that Google handles proximity of the searcher quite differently when the searcher is near a business vs. in some other city or state. In other words, if, from my location in California, I look for a plumber in Austin, I'm not likely to see the exact same results as someone actually in Austin would see. Rank checking tools aren't great at approximating this. So, I want to ask you to ask your client to do something. Have them search from their office computer on Ranch Road for "austin plumbers" and tell you exactly where they see themselves both locally and organically. Please, if you can do this, come back and let me know what they say.

Clearly, the launch of the new site design is making you question whether something you did caused the ranking drop. But, I want to be sure that we aren't overlooking that Google somehow made a change that is coincidental to your redesign and has nothing to do with it. If your client's site was penalized, I wouldn't expect to see it ranking so excellently for my searches from California. And the GMB listing is not suspended or anything like that. So, let see if you can get your client to tell you what they see searching from their own office. I'll stay tuned.

[GrueBleenAgency]

HI Miriam,

Thanks for the response! See below:

1. The redesign kept the exact same URL structure. And very little content changes. We have since (today) removed some of the spammier links and 301 redirected them.

2. Yes correct. Every other city so far except with in a 30 mile radius of Austin. I'm using isearchfrom.com to verify.

3. Local was well ranked before and consistent with national (first page for terms such as Austin Plumber, Austin Plumbers, Plumbing in Austin, as well as brand name - Reliant Plumbing)

4. Launched on February 22nd.

Thank you!

[MiriamEllis]

Good morning!

So sorry to hear you've encountered some trouble. Can you answer some questions for me about your scenario, please?

1. Did your re-design of the website keep the exact same domain and URLs, or did you have to do any re-directs?

2. Am I right that your concern is that, when you search for things like "austin plumbers" while you are physically located in Dallas, you are seeing your client on the first page of the organic results, but when you search from a physical location in Austin, your client is coming up on the 9th page of the organic results? Is that right?

3. You mention local results, as well. What were your client's local pack rankings prior to the re-design and how, exactly, have they changed?

4. How long ago did you launch the re-design?