Has anyone else noticed a major increase in Yelp, BBB, etc. results in local SERPs, pushing business websites further down?
-
Across multiple cities and markets, this seems to be a trend. "Chicago coffee shop" or "Minneapolis hair salon" or "Sacramento car repair" - outside the local 7-pack, virtually every result is Yelp, BBB, Yellowpages, etc.
Is this related to algo changes, or simply a result of those national sites pumping major resources into SEO? It just seems to be suddenly far more prevalent than it was even 6 months ago.
-
Good discussion going on here! While I agree with the comments here that strong local businesses are still faring well in the SERPs, I, too, have noticed Google's bias towards Yelp and actually blogged about this recently. A few years ago, there was a similar situation going on with Merchant Circle. Practically every local search would bring up Merchant Circle listings, but it seems to me that MC has now been replaced by Yelp with similar results. I rarely see MC results on page one, but Yelp has become extremely dominant. This could change, of course, but for now, having a well-maintained Yelp profile is very important for most local businesses.
-
I have noticed especially Yelp listings competing with local sites on the first page for a while. I have also noticed in the last week a slight jump. Yelp listings that were previously towards the bottom of the first page are now at the top. I can see other issues that Colin pointed out, but I see it on sites that are doing a lot of things right as well.
At least my clients are happy when it is their Yelp listing that is going up. Not so much when it is their competitors poaching the top spots!
-
Listings like Yelp have continued to increase their traction in SERPs in the past few years. Yelp is a very trusted source of information, especially on a local scale. Broad-match keywords like "local diners" will most likely give you Yelp or Google Places results, as opposed to individual websites.
When considering SEO, most people will focus their efforts on driving organic search traffic to their site. Really though, we should consider our online reputation as a whole. If you get a customer to walk in your front door, does it really matter if they found your webpage, or if they found you on Yelp or FourSquare? As marketers, our ultimate goal is to generate leads and convert them to sales - it does not matter how we reach the end result.
So in short - you shouldn't be alarmed by this, and shouldn't even feel threatened by it. Use these platforms to manage your online reputation, receive feedback, and engage your potential customers.
-
Noticed this as well--especially for some long-tails that we were ranking extremely high for steadily dropped to the bottom of the page and were taken over by sites with extremely high DA.
IMHO, Google probably steadily increased the weight of the DA factor and this caused a shift in the organic rankings.
-
I've seen a lot of un-optimized competitor sites get pushed back to page 2 and taken over by listings in the past couple months. But, the sites I take care of that don't have dupe content issues, mass spam links, and silly keyword stuffing are doing great!
I don't think engines are favoring anyone....I just think things are evolving, and local business websites need work! They tend to be crippled with technical issues, and have over-optimized copy and no real backlinks. And a lot of businesses are linking to their own Yelp or directory profile from the homepage of their website, sometimes anchored with the keywords they want to rank for. Lot's of issues going on here.
-
I've noticed it happening with the site s you mentioned and then some. I started a discussion about it awhile back. http://moz.com/community/q/interesting-serp-trend-i-m-observing
We've been outranked by ebay, amazon, wikipedia, and etsy.
-
I have noticed this getting worse for a while now. It is annoying but they carry a huge advantage in Domain Authority and will thus rank better. Hopefully you have a presence in all of those different directories.
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
-
My Website No Longer Appears in Mobile Google Search but Does in Desktop...Why Is This?
For a long time my website has appeared in both desktop and mobile search in Google. Yet recently it has stopped appearing in mobile yet still on desktop. Any ideas why this is happening and how to rectify it please? Many Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | WSIDW0 -
Who else is noticing a shift in deeper pages ranking?
Without mentioning names, we're noticing a shift in many of our clients ranking pages. Previously many of them held page 1 positions with their home page. We've been building brand only anchor text to these pages for some time now and there's a noticeable change in visibility to the domain as a whole displayed in GWT and there's an uplift in organic traffic too. It just happens that some of our clients already had pages in the root directory that were very optimised for the clients' head terms, but all of a sudden, these sub pages with very few inbound links have started ranking in the place of the home pages. I've attached a screenshot of the landing page organic traffic. The pages in question have been there for at least 8-10 months. These inner pages would not normally have been able to hold their ground in this position and I'm concerned that this is a temporary change. I can see this going one of two ways; (i) home page beings to out rank sub page as before, (i) sub page loses ranking ability and home page rank does not come back. My questions to the community are therefore; **Has anyone else noticed this shift in ranking behaviour? ** What are everyone's thoughts on this? - Will it remain this way? From this query I can easily ask another wider question; Good advice across the internet says we should be building strong brand links and citations to our clients' domains. Typically brand links go to the homepage, which should provide the homepage and (to a lesser extent the domain) with a ranking/traffic/visibility uplift. However, as I'm noticing other pages now picking up ranking boosts as a result of this; **Should we still be trying to gain links to these more commercial landing pages? ** How are others building high quality links to pages full of commercial copy? I hope this can spark a little bit of a debate. I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts. Thanks yPOEjVA.png
Algorithm Updates | | tomcraig860 -
Organic Traffic dropped 50%. Anyone want to have a stab at why? (URL listed)
Just curious what the pro's on here think is the reason why our site got hammered recently. The URL is www.jobshadow.com. We've got gobs of quality content that had been ranking for quite a few keywords. Even one from Rand himself http://www.jobshadow.com/interview-with-seo-and-seomoz-founder-rand-fishkin/ Rankings for even the exact match domain keyword 'Job Shadow' have been pummeled. Anyway, we've got a pretty solid link profile I would think. We also have a very high user time on the site, thus suggesting the organic traffic was engaged when Google ranked us for those keywords. We have lots of unsolicited inbound links and even recent ones from PBS. I'm not really sure what it takes to please the "machine" at this point. Curious as to what everyone here thinks.
Algorithm Updates | | arkana0 -
How to increase Alexa Rank?
Hi All, I have a website mexat.com and continuously my Alexa rank decreasing before a month my website Alexa rank was approx 3500 but now it is 4,487 so I am worried about that and want to get Alexa below 2000. So please suggest me what I can do to get good Alexa rank. I am waiting for your valuable feedback. Thanks Mike
Algorithm Updates | | afycon0 -
How to prevent my search results being affected by the previous searches I have made ?
How to ensure that the search I have made is not based on my past search history and the results in my cache ? I don't want to sign out of Google every time and then clear my cache. Does Incognito Mode in Google Chrome work or is there any other way of making my search results unbiased ?
Algorithm Updates | | EricMoore0 -
More youtube results from the past 2 days
Hi, Did anyone see changes in their serps? There are more youtube videos appearing in the organic results?
Algorithm Updates | | Indexxess0 -
Organizing Website Content
Hey everyone! I am looking for some opinions on organizing website content. Here are two thoughts. I am open to alternative suggestions as well. Thanks for any consideration in this matter! **Aviation Supply Store Thought A ** **Helicopters Airplanes Rockets ** Helicopter engines Airplane engines Rocket engines Helicopter Fuels Airplane Fuels Rocket fuels Helicopter Accessories Airplane Accessories Rocket Accessories Aviation Supply Store Thought B Engines Fuels Accessories Helicopter Engines Helicopter Fuels Helicopter Accessories Airplane Engines Airplane Fuels Airplane Accessories Rocket Engines Rocket Fuels Rocket Accessories I simply chose aviation as an example. I'm just having difficulty deciding on how best to catagorize. Thank You!
Algorithm Updates | | APICDA0 -
Google results on an Ipad 2
Has anyone else seen different google organic results for a site when viewing on an Ipad compared to computer browser ? I've just checked a site and were no1 on google when searched on the Ipad 2 but when searched on my Macbook we are page 2 ? Could this just be different data centers or do google serve up different results to the 2 devices ? Would be really interested to know if anyone else has seen this. JP
Algorithm Updates | | Prongo0