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.
GMB Account Fallen Off Rankings in past 24 hours
-
My map pack presence has fallen off the face of the earth over the last 24 hours. My location The Escape Game Chicago was top 3 yesterday for 'escape room chicago' and now they only show up when searching for the exact brand name.
What's weirder is I still rank #1 organically for that keyword.I have looked through the account, nothing seems to be totally amiss. Google has not notified me of any issues or penalties. I have no clue what happened.Can anyone point me in the right direction or provide some insight as to how I can recover my ranking?
-
Thank you for bringing your question to the forum, Daniel. Likely, what you will need to do is a full competitive audit (for which you can find some guidance here: https://moz.com/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit) to discover why your business is being outranked by a competitor. My glance at this here in the forum can't replace an audit, but I will take a look and jot down some notes about what I see.
1. You mention that you were previously in the 3 pack for "escape room Chicago" but on March 10, you dropped. Looking from my location on the West Coast on March 16, I see you are at position #10 in Google's local finder (the mapped results you see when you click on the 3-pack for more info). So, you haven't disappeared altogether, but you have definitely fallen at least 7 spots since you last enjoyed your 3 pack ranking. When you search from your location at the place of business, what position are you seeing yourself in today?
2. Your review count is many times greater than that of any competitor, with the exception of Fox in a Box also having over 1,000 reviews. You currently have 1,399 reviews vs. the top competitor for this search term, Escape House, which has 95. Pardon the frank question, but are you certain you haven't done anything to violate Google's review guidelines in a way that might have prejudiced them against your listing? This would include incentivizing reviews in any way for your business, having employees review your business, etc. The advantage should be to you here, in your far greater number of reviews, but when the total number of reviews is so much greater than most of the rest of the field, it's important to be sure guidelines are being adhered to.
3. Your overall star rating of 4.9 is .1 greater than Escape House's 4.8. Advantage to you.
4. Your categories are the same as your top competitor's. No difference there.
5. Your competitor has written Google posts in the past. None are showing for you. Advantage to them.
6. You are doing a much better job responding to reviews than your top competitor is. Advantage to you.
7. What is going on with your business being located next door to two other escape businesses? Do you have a relationship with Escape House or Safe House? What is the scenario here?
8. In terms of business names, the name on your street signage as seen via Google Street View does not match what you have called your business in your GMB listing. Your street sign reads: The Escape Game. Your GMB listing is titled: The Escape Game Chicago. Adding extra keywords to your listing title is considered spam. Meanwhile, Escape House does not have extra keywords in their name. Technically, because Google's algorithm is still rewarding business name spammers, the advantage in this could be to you, but on the other hand, it could be possible that your business name was reported to Google and they are docking you for this.
9. The MozCast reported a bit of heavy weather on March 9th which could have included a shakeup in your pack. Local Rank Flux also reported a "hot" day on the 9th (see https://www.localsearchforum.com/threads/sudden-gmb-ranking-drop-for-all-keywords.55923/).
So, these are some things I'm seeing at a glance. I would recommend that you follow through with a complete audit between yourself and the business ranking #1. And those questions regarding your reviews, your business name, and the geographic scenario regarding your business and the 2 competitors being next door to one another deserve a closer look. You aren't being impacted by the Possum filter, from what I can see, because you are present on the map despite your close proximity to the two other competitors, but you are in a densely competitive area, for sure.
Please, feel free to come back with answer to the questions I've asked or with further questions of your own.
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
-
Using PO Box/Virtual Address for local citations, but not GMB?
Hello. So, I am aware that it is in violation of Google My Bussiness's terms of service to use register a PO box/virtual address with GMB, but is it problematic to use such addresses for general link building with local citations, such as local directories and resource pages? Would the cons outweigh the pros (more backlinks)? And what about using one of these kinds of addresses on my website, but not GMB? Is it all so interrelated nowadays that I should steer clear of publishing a virtual address anywhere? That just seems hard to wrap my head around as PO Boxes have served a valuable function for small businesses for some 150 years. Thank you, Jon
Local Listings | | custardextract0 -
Local Landing Page Optimization and Multiple GMB Listings
Hello, We’re building out a site for our business that has close to 100 office locations in different cities. Many of these are ‘partner brands’ that we have acquired under our brand. Similar to a franchise model. We want to be able to help users find offices near their location. Each office will have it’s own landing page with a physical address and contact information. We know we’ll have to build out unique copy and markup customized to the office/location. We’ve already read through https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages as well. We’re also considering ‘silos’ to build out pages for each location. To preserve authority and avoid cannibalization; our thought was having each location as sub-folders off of our domain (i.e. domain.com/locations/Partner#1/). The other option would be using a sub-domain (i.e. Partner.Domain.com/) which we noticed competitors doing and treating each sub-domain as their own independent site. Is all of the above the correct strategy? Any further suggestions? Should we fill out a separate GMB for each office and should they all use the same brand name? (in other words “BrandA” vs. “BrandA” - Brooklyn Office). In addition to GMB; would each location need local listings created (also all under the same name)? Any help or insight would be very much appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you in advance. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R0 -
Way to see clicks on GMB Products
Hey! I just added products to my Google My Business page. The company I work for does experiential entertainment so you cant actually buy the products but you can buy tickets to them on the website so I added them as a product with a Learn More button. Is there a way for me to see how many people clicked "Learn More"??
Local Listings | | danieldaher0 -
GMB 'Located In' Feature
Hello - can anyone provide some guidance on how to remove a 'Located in' field from a GMB listing? This has appeared in a client's GMB listing - but the other location is separate and so it is not applicable. I have worked out how to add a 'Located in' feature - but not remove it. Appreciate any help.
Local Listings | | P.Myers0 -
Radius Size around GMB location for google local search
We are a digital marketing agency Our clients are (virtually all) retail automotive dealerships. We compete in various market places coast to coast (USA). Since Google puts retail automotive dealerships under Local SEO umbrella, is it known ( published ) how large is the radius around my client's Google My Business rooftop's address? How wide is their search 'reach' according to Google? Asked another way, in a triangular, three SEO geo area, with one city being at the epicenter of the population dispersion, and my client, versus my client's competitors being different distances from where the majority of the population emanates from, all other SERP factors being equal (assumption) between the two competitors, how far is each clients REACH from a Local Search standpoint. Is this known? Published by Google. ONE example: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/BMW+of+South+Albany,+U.S.+9W,+Glenmont,+NY/42.7662693,-73.8138088/@42.6727121,-73.7993527,12z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x89dde0fe8829c405:0xd915fb9b3b60bf33!2m2!1d-73.7973301!2d42.589211!1m0!3e0
Local Listings | | GaryT_SEO1 -
How to Rank in Yelp
Hello everyone! I manage SEO for a pretty large brand that has close to 100 office locations nationwide. In the last year we have completely revamped our Yelp pages. This has been a great secondary source of traffic and conversions for us because of the type of industry we are in. The problem is, it can be exponentially better if we were more visible. We have done almost everything we can to make our pages as good if not better than almost any competitor regardless of geographic location. We even have the enhanced profiles (extortion) that remove competitors ads from appearing on our listings. Here is what we have done in the last year to each listing: Uploaded tons of photos Increased reviews Added proper categories Fine-tuned all of our CTAs Added in a unique and optimized business description ( Available with enhanced profiles) Set the proper service area range on their map Increased our review response rate ( both negative and positive) to 100% Still, even after months and months have gone by we struggle to rank on the first page for our service category. Doing manual searches often turn up competitors, who do not even have their listing claimed, have no photos, little reviews will rank higher than us. Even though we have an account rep because of our business size, bringing this issue up to them is about as useful as talking to a blanket. They push CPC so hard that its the last thing they are willing to help with. It has gotten to the point where I am honestly starting to believe in a self-curated conspiracy theory that they purposely hold larger brands back in organic to sell CPC harder. Obviously certain brands that hold the branding clout like a "Best Buy" would be hard to get away with. But still, we do all the right things and we are getting very minimal results compared to where we should be. Has anyone else had issues with Yelp or have any ideas on some steps we could take to appease their particular algorithm? Thanks! -Ben
Local Listings | | Davey_Tree1 -
How to verify Google My Business (GMB) account in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Hi folks, I know the majority of you are based in the US, so won't be experiencing the same problem as me. I have set up a Google My Business account for a company here in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The only problem is that I can't verify it using the normal methods like a postcard being sent out as the UAE doesn't have a postal service, so there are no postcodes to target an address. Basically I go through the process of creating a GMB account, setting the address details and map marker, then try to verify the account by postcard (this is the only way). I wait 14+ days but still no postcard arrives for obvious reasons - no postal address! So - my question is, how do we get round this problem? I know it can be done as there are plenty of businesses out there in Dubai that are verified on Google maps and GMB. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Local Listings | | SeoSheikh0 -
Removing phone number from GMB = lower rankings?
Hey, all! I have a client who needs for people to see her website before they call her, or else she spends 15 min explaining what's already on the site. Her Google My Business rankings are excellent for a lot of keywords (yay!), so people are seeing the number big and bold and just picking up the phone. I called GMB support to ask if removing the phone number would affect rankings, and they said "I don't think so". If this weren't a HUGE deal to the client, I wouldn't take the chance, but she feels that she's losing business by being on these calls when legitimate prospects try to call and get voice mail. So... any experience with removing phone numbers from GMB, or any other creative solutions to the quandary? Thanks so much for reading! ~ Scott UPDATE: Well, we went ahead and tried it anyway, and our GMB listins on the 7-pack nosedived! STRONGLY recommend against this, at least with the current algorithm!! The phone number is back now. 🙂
Local Listings | | measurableROI0