Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why won't a business show up in the local pack when all signs point to that it should?
-
Hello! I've been trying to figure out why a business won't show up in the local pack even though their GMB has more reviews, seems to be doing everything right, and just doesn't show. The business is "A Senior Journey", and should be showing up for searches relating to "senior placement services tucson" or "senior placement tucson", but no dice. Been doing a competitor analysis and they are doing better or on par with all of their competitors. The same businesses in Tucson that are competitors show up both times, even Phoenix locations, but not A Senior Journey...any ideas?
Thank you!
-
Does Google really care about the business which is running currently in the background such as Google map and information about that company detail shared on the map?
-
Hi Miriam,
Thank you for looking into this, I appreciate it! To answer some of youre questions:
- The GMB is claimed and verified
- The reason you don't see an address is because the business does not have a brick and mortar, they are service area only and it's not a franchise, just a solo business
- You make a good point about "Tucson" not being super present on the site, I will look into ways of including location more
- As for the 5 star reviews, I believe the owner is following guidelines! She has been in business for 15 years and is a very kind person who works with the elderly, so while I can't be certain perhaps she is postively unusual (though I will keep an eye on it for sure)
- I will take this over to the Google Support Forum, thank you for your help!
-
Good morning!
It's good that you're doing a competitive audit for the business, as I agree, it appears to be being excluded from Google's local finder for searches like "senior placement". I am able to find the listing's Google Business Profile doing a branded organic search and I'm able to find it via a branded search within the finder, but it's not coming up for me for non-branded searches. So, the listing hasn't suffered a hard penalty (removal) but it's not ranking for your stated search phrase.
I can't replicate a full audit here in the forum, but here are some things standing out to me, at a glance:
-
Many of the top ranked competitors have exact matches of "senior placement" and "placement" in their business titles. You don't. If these are legitimately their names, then this is to their advantage. But if any of them have added "senior" "placement" or "senior placement" to their business titles when this is not their name, this would be a violation of Google's guidelines that you could report.
-
Many of the ranking businesses have a street address published on their listing. Your facility doesn't. In fact, there are zero signals of location on your website, other than the 502 prefix of the phone number. I see no address, no mention of Tucson in the text content of the pages, and only a reference to locality in some title tags. Is the business actually based in Tucson? Why does it not publish an address, and why am I not seeing Tucson referenced in the content of the website? It's making me curious about the business model. Is this a single business at a single location, or is it part of a franchise and the website I'm looking at at aseniorjourney.com is just for the Tucson branch of a much larger business? At any rate, there's no address on the Google listing (compared to competitors) and very weak signals of locality coming from the website. I do see that Old Pueblo Placement Services is ranking without an address, so what I've noticed here is not "the answer". Still, it's something to investigate further.
-
The Possum filter does not appear to be at play here, because no matter how many times I zoom in on the map, the business just isn't showing up.
-
How confident are you that the review practices the facility has engaged in are guideline compliant? 33 all-five-star reviews makes me slightly worried. Not saying anything is wrong there, but I always find businesses with perfect 5 star rating to be slightly unusual.
-
Without a street address, I can't run the diagnostics I would like to seek problems with the listing. Have you done this?
-
It looks like the GMB listing hasn't been claimed. Is that right?
That's all I have time for this morning. Something is definitely amiss with the business. I would recommend taking the listing over to Google's Help Forum for further troubleshooting.
-
-
Hi there,
You can add more keywords to your Google My Business Title.
For example you can you change your title to “ A Senior Journey - Senior Placement Services”. This should trigger an algorithm.
Ross
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google My Business pages for New Construction Communities
I have a number of builders of new homes as clients. Typically, they build out a whole neighborhood at once and give the neighborhood a fancy name. We were planning to create Google My Business pages for these communities but then ran into some potential challenges. As new communities, they are sometimes not on Google's radar yet Some of them have model homes where you might take a tour with a realtor that serves the community exclusively but many don't. So here come the questions... Is there a way to make Google speed up its process of recognizing new addresses? I have to choose an address to associate with the GMB page, probably the address of model home. Is this going to create annoying problems for a buyer who someday buys that model home? Since some communities don't have a model home, I could arbitrarily assign an address of one of the neighborhood homes to the GMB page, but this leads to the same question about creating a GMB page that will exist after the builder has sold all the houses in the community. Will it be weird to have the GMB referring to someone's private residence down the road? My assumption is that claiming a GMB page would help with local ranking if someone searches for something like "new homes" in addition to providing easy driving directions to someone who has done a bit of research and Googles the name of the new home community while out driving and searching for homes. These seem to be the main benefits, but are the challenges associated with questions 1-3 even worth the trouble of trying to claim listings for these communities?
Local Listings | | TheKatzMeow0 -
Improve Google Business ranking
While my client's websites have been ranking well in SERP for their keyterms I'm at a lost on what I can do to improve their Google business/map presence. I'm referring to their listing where the top three come up or when you search on Google Maps.
Local Listings | | FPK
https://gyazo.com/26ec78ed7f712157ec72492199545431 Ex 1. Several months ago my client was ranked #1 both for SERP and maps until they dropped to 2nd on maps. Now they're ranked 1st in search yet 2nd for local business rankings as you can see from the screenshot above. At one point my client's business did have more reviews than the 1st ranking business yet they still weren't 1st. Ex. 2. Client(s) is ranked 4th in search and doesn't show in the top 3 map listings for their search term. If you click on More places to view Google Maps they're listed all the way down as the 15th listing or worse can't even be found when searching by their main SEO key term . Of course they are found by searching for their business name so it's not like there is a problem with the listing. I make sure to: Completely fill out their Google Business profile(NAP, hours and add pictures) Have my client try to gain positive reviews Manage and respond to reviews(mainly the negative ones) Add map and Google business link to their website Can anyone offer any other insight on what else can be done to improve their local presence on maps that I might be missing?0 -
How Do I Remove Address from Google Business Page?
Not very up to date in handling local listings, so here's my situation. I have an office that is not going out of business, but instead going virtual. So that physical address will no longer exist but the team is intact. So I am dealing with the Google Business Listing page for this office at https://business.google.com/ In the "Published on" section, it has Google Search, Google Maps, and Google+. I want to remove it from Maps and the address from this account. There's an address for this store, but editing it only seems to allow changing, but not removal. There is also the option of "Mark as Permanently Closed", but surely that isn't the best option since that will leave a nasty red "PERMANENTLY CLOSED" in the results when searching. What's the best course of action here?
Local Listings | | nbyloff0 -
Disadvantages to Hiding Business Address on Google Places?
From a Local SEO standpoint, wouldn't hiding a business address on Google Places for Business create an SEO disadvantage in that I would expect in the local portion of the search results, there would be a bias to showing businesses that have not hidden their address as then you can place a pin on the map at the location? Or from a Local SEO standpoint does it not matter if you hide your address or not?
Local Listings | | Jazee1 -
Our satellite office isn't showing up on Google maps. How can we add it?
We are trying to include maps to our locations on our "Contact" page, and in taking these maps from Google, we came upon the following issue: We have Google+ listings for several of our satellite offices, which are set up through Carr Workplaces. When we look on maps, we can only find the Carr Workplace listing, rather than the listing for our business at that location. Obviously, we don't want to display the map that way on our own page; we want the map to show our business name. I realize that Google only wants fully-staffed businesses to be displayed on maps, and so whether or not we belong there is up for debate within our company. That said, we'd like to know how to make the maps listing work regardless. Thanks!
Local Listings | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Should my website link to my google business listing given that I already link from google business to my website ?
I have a website with individual Location Landing Pages for each of my Depots. I also have individual Google Local Business Listings for each of my depots. Should I have a link from my Website Location Landing Pages to the associated Google local Business listings or not ?... Given that I already have a link on my Google Business listing to the relevant Location Page on my website. I wasn't sure whether linking both ways would be more beneficial thus enforcing things better or whether it's not needed to link both ways . thanks Pete
Local Listings | | PeteC120 -
Wrong Category Displaying Google Business Page?
Our firm keeps displaying "bankruptcy attorney" on google business page. Granted, we do that, as well as a variety of other services, but our primary category is "Personal Injury Attorney". I was told the categories are randomly selected, but I don't think that's true. Every time I've looked (or had other people look for us) on local, it displays as "bankruptcy attorney." What should I do? Is there a way to lock in the "Personal Injury Attorney" category, so it's the one that displays? Should I get rid of all the other categories except for "personal injury attorney?" Any other suggestion? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
How to remove a former business location from Google Places?
I've received a strange response from Google Places on local listings for a home builder. Google's rep suggested that we not list the new home sales center (a model home) since at some point it will change from being a business listing to a residential listing. That is just wrong. It will be a place of business for the next 3 years and then will flip to being a private residence. These days it is uncommon, but not that rare to turn over ownership from public to private or vice versa (A residence becoming a law or other commercial establishment. Or a whole office building becoming condos.) The issue is, when it does happen, how do we get Google and others to recognize that a business is no longer a business location? I've had trouble bringing down the address of former former model home sales centers on Google Places much to the chagrin of the residents.
Local Listings | | BlairKuhnen0
