undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. Research & Trends
  3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
  4. Significant "Average Position" dips in Search Console each time I post on Google My Business

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.

Significant "Average Position" dips in Search Console each time I post on Google My Business

White Hat / Black Hat SEO
2
8
1.9k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • PhotoMattJames
    PhotoMattJames last edited by Jul 4, 2019, 5:21 AM

    Hi everyone,

    Several weeks ago I noticed that each Wednesday my site's Average Position in Search Console dipped significantly.

    Immediately I identified that this was the day my colleague published and back-linked a blog post, and so  we spent the next few weeks testing and monitoring everything we did.

    We discovered that it was ONLY when we created a Google My Business post that the Average Position dipped, and on the 1st July we tested it one more time. The results were the same (please see attached image).

    I am 100% confident that Google My Business is the cause of the issue, but can't identify why. The image I upload belongs to me, the text isn't spammy or stuffed with keywords, the Learn More links to my own website, and I never receive any warnings from Google about the content.

    I would love to hear the community's thoughts on this and how I can stop the issue from continuing. I should note, that my Google My Business insights are generally positive i.e. no dips in search results etc.

    My URL is https://www.photographybymatthewjames.com/

    Thanks in advance

    Matthew

    C0000OTrpfmNWx8g

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • ClaytonJ
      ClaytonJ last edited by Jul 15, 2019, 6:36 PM Jul 15, 2019, 6:36 PM

      No worries, you often get the weekly dips when global - no idea why. However, when adding country it all flattens out.  If the question is answered or happy please mark it accordingly.  Hope that helps.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • PhotoMattJames
        PhotoMattJames last edited by Jul 15, 2019, 1:38 PM Jul 15, 2019, 1:38 PM

        Actually, no. Those big dips each Wednesday don't appear when I select Denmark. So I guess this makes much more sense if I am only targetting a local market such as Denmark.

        Thanks for making this clear...

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ClaytonJ
          ClaytonJ last edited by Jul 10, 2019, 9:04 AM Jul 10, 2019, 9:04 AM

          Ta, but do you get the big dip now when Denmark is applied?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • PhotoMattJames
            PhotoMattJames @ClaytonJ last edited by Jul 9, 2019, 9:04 AM Jul 9, 2019, 9:04 AM

            Thanks again.

            No, the country filter wasn't set, so it was showing an average position for all countries.

            The site is optimised as best as possible as far as I am aware.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ClaytonJ
              ClaytonJ last edited by Jul 6, 2019, 10:21 AM Jul 6, 2019, 10:21 AM

              Apologies my question was unclear - when you extracted your position data from search console.  Did you limit it to Denmark?  There is navigation that lets you limit to the country.  Can you let me know if we are working from that data set on positional changes?

              Zero or 0 is worse than 196.  0 means your not ranking at all, whereas 196 means that is where you are ranking position 196.

              They are very low rankings, is the site optimised from a title tag, meta description, H1 perspective?

              Check out the URL structure component,

              https://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors

              Also see excerpt below:

              An Ideally Optimized Web Page

              An ideal web page should do all of the following:

              • Be hyper-relevant to a specific topic (usually a product or single object)
                • Include subject in title tag
                • Include subject in URL
                • Include subject in image alt text
                • Specify subject several times throughout text content
              • Provide unique content about a given subject
              • Link back to its category page
              • Link back to its subcategory page (If applicable)
              • Link back to its homepage (normally accomplished with an image link showing the website logo on the top left of a page)

              Hope that helps.

              PhotoMattJames 1 Reply Last reply Jul 9, 2019, 9:04 AM Reply Quote 0
              • PhotoMattJames
                PhotoMattJames last edited by Jul 6, 2019, 5:19 AM Jul 6, 2019, 5:19 AM

                Hi, and thanks for the fast response.

                Yes, I have specifically been targetting Denmark for the past 3-4 years (I set this up in the old Webmaster Tools and it still appears the same). So in short, I am targetting one country.

                As for Queries – yes, there are significant drops for certain customer queries.  The column on the left with the highest number shows the average page rank on the day I posted on Google My Business, vs. the day before I posted. i.e. event photographer dipped from 0 average page ranking to 196

                Does this make things clearer in any way?

                | event photographer | 196 | 0 | 196 |
                | event photography | 193 | 0 | 193 |
                | sports photographer | 188.3 | 0 | 188.3 |
                | sports photography | 182 | 0 | 182 |
                | james harrison | 101 | 0 | 101 |
                | photoshoot københavn | 98 | 0 | 98 |
                | copenhagen photos | 97 | 0 | 97 |
                | danish courses in copenhagen | 96 | 0 | 96 |
                | dhl stafet københavn | 92 | 0 | 92 |
                | cph business | 91.5 | 0 | 91.5 |

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ClaytonJ
                  ClaytonJ last edited by Jul 4, 2019, 6:15 AM Jul 4, 2019, 6:15 AM

                  Hi

                  On search console - have you limited that to a country?  Or is that "countryless"".   As if countryless - not unusal.

                  Can you clarify? Ideally, limit to the country you are targetting.

                  Also on top of the overall position dips - is there any corresponding dips for major customer queries you are tracking?

                  Regards

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  1 out of 8
                  • First post
                    1/8
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • Jacksons_Fencing

                    Does Google want contact numbers in the meta description?!

                    Reading up it seems like there's complete free reign to enter what you want in the meta description and they are not considered a direct ranking signal However I have added contact numbers to the meta descriptions for around 20 reasonably high ranking pages for my company and it seems to have had a negative effect (taken screen grabs and previous rankings) More strangely when you 'inspect' the page the meta description features the desired number yet when you find the page in the serps the meta description just does not feature the number (page has been cached and the description does not carry on) I'm wondering whether such direct changes are seen as spam and therefore negative to the page?

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Mar 15, 2017, 11:58 PM | Jacksons_Fencing
                    1
                  • CayenneRed89

                    Advice needed! How to clear a website of a Wordpress Spam Link Injection Google penalty?

                    Hi Guys, I am currently working on website that has been penalised by Google for a spam link injection.  The website was hacked and 17,000 hidden links were injected. All the links have been removed and the site has subsequently been redesigned and re-built.  That was the easy part 🙂 The problems comes when I look on Webmaster.  Google is showing 1000's of internal spam links to the homepage and other pages within the site.  These pages do not actually exist as they were cleared along with all the other spam links. I do believe though this is causing problems with the websites rankings.  Certain pages are not ranking on Google and the homepage keyword rankings are fluctuating massively. I have reviewed the website's external links and these are all fine. Does anyone have any experience of this and can provide any recommendations / advice for clearing the site from Google penalty? Thanks, Duncan

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Oct 8, 2015, 10:26 PM | CayenneRed89
                    0
                  • wlingke

                    How does google know if rich snippet reviews are fake?

                    According to: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/rich-snippets/reviews - all someone has to do is add in some html code and write the review. How does google do any validation on whether these reviews are legitimate or not?

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Sep 11, 2015, 6:31 PM | wlingke
                    0
                  • Choice

                    Forcing Google to Crawl a Backlink URL

                    I was surprised that I couldn't find much info on this topic, considering that Googlebot must crawl a backlink url in order to process a disavow request (ie Penguin recovery and reconsideration requests). My trouble is that we recently received a great backlink from a buried page on a .gov domain and the page has yet to be crawled after 4 months. What is the best way to nudge Googlebot into crawling the url and discovering our link?

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Dec 8, 2014, 7:42 PM | Choice
                    0
                  • Eteach_Marketing

                    How do you change the 6 links under your website in Google?

                    Hello everyone, I have no idea how to ask this question, so I'm going to give it a shot and hopefully someone can help me!! My company is called Eteach, so when you type in Eteach into Google, we come in the top position (phew!) but there are 6 links that appear underneath it (I've added a picture to show what I mean). How do you change these links?? I don't even know what to call them, so if there is a particular name for these then please let me know! They seem to be an organic rank rather than PPC...but if I'm wrong then do correct me! Thanks! zorIsxH.jpg

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Apr 30, 2014, 8:24 AM | Eteach_Marketing
                    0
                  • Bodie

                    Google places VS position one ranking above the places.

                    Hi Guys, Will creating a new Google places listing for a business have any effect their current position one spot for their major geo location keyword? I.e restaurants perth - say they are ranking no 1 above all the places listings if they set up a places listing would they lose that position and merge with all the other places accounts? Or would they have that listing as well as the places listing? I have been advised it could be detrimental to set up the places account if this is the case does anyone know any ways around this issue as the business really needs a places page for google maps etc. Appreciate some guidance Thanks. BC

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | May 30, 2013, 4:52 PM | Bodie
                    0
                  • tomypro

                    Interesting case of IP-wide Google Penalty, what is the most likely cause?

                    Dear SEOMOZ Community, Our portfolio of around 15 internationalized web pages has received a significant, as it seems IP-wide, Google penalty starting November 2010 and have yet to recover from it. We have undergone many measure to lift the penalty including reconsideration requests wo/ luck and am now hoping the SEOMoz community can give us some further tips. We are very interested in the community's help and judgement what else we can try to uplift the penalty. As quick background information, The sites in question offers sports results data and is translated for several languages. Each market, equals language, has its own tld domain using the central keyword, e.g. <keyword_spanish>.es <keyword_german>.de <keyword_us>.com</keyword_us></keyword_german></keyword_spanish> The content is highly targeted around the market, which means there are no duplicate content pages across the domains, all copy is translated, content reprioritized etc. however the core results content in the body of the pages obviously needs to stay to 80% the same A SEO agency of ours has been using semi-automated LinkBuilding tools in mid of 2010 to acquire link partnerships There are some promotional one-way links to sports-betting and casino positioned on the page The external linking structure of the pages is very keyword and main-page focused, i.e. 90% of the external links link to the front page with one particular keyword All sites have a strong domain authority and have been running under the same owner for over 5 years As mentioned, we have experienced dramatic ranking losses across all our properties starting in November 2010. The applied penalties are indisputable given that rankings dropped for the main keywords in local Google search engines from position 3 to position 350 after the sites have been ranked in the top 10 for over 5 years. A screenshot of the ranking history for one particular domain is attached. The same behavior can be observed across domains. Our questions are: Is there something like an IP specific Google penalty that can apply to web properties across an IP or can we assume Google just picked all pages registered at Google Webmaster? What is the most likely cause for our penalty given the background information? Given the drops started already in November 2010 we doubt that the Panda updates had any correlation t this issue? What are the best ways to resolve our issues at this point? We have significant history data available such as tracking records etc. Our actions so far were reducing external links, on page links, and C-class internal links Are there any other factors/metrics we should look at to help troubleshooting the penalties? After all this time wo/ resolution, should we be moving on two new domains and forwarding all content as 301s to the new pages? Are the things we need to try first? Any help is greatly appreciated. SEOMoz rocks. /T cxK29.png

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Aug 12, 2011, 9:06 AM | tomypro
                    0
                  • BrandLabs

                    Will Google Penalize Content put in a Div with a Scrollbar?

                    I noticed Moosejaw was adding quite a bit of content to the bottom of category pages via a div tag that makes use of a scroll bar. Could a site be penalized by Google for this technique? Example: http://www.moosejaw.com/moosejaw/shop/search_Patagonia-Clothing____

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | Feb 10, 2014, 5:53 PM | BrandLabs
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.