Wondering what's up with local search rankings lately? Columnist Joy Hawkins has the scoop on a recent local algorithm update that local SEO experts are calling 'Possum.'
For those of you wondering what “Possum” is,
it’s the name we in the local search community decided to give the
massive Local algorithm update that happened September 1, 2016.
Phil
Rozek suggested the name, pointing out that it is fitting since
many business owners think their Google My Business listings are
gone, when in fact they are not. They have just been filtered—they’re
playing possum.
What was the update?
All the evidence seems to indicate this particular
update only impacted ranking in the 3-pack and Local Finder (AKA the
local results or Google Maps results). There is talk of another
update that happened right
after, which impacted organic results.
I believe the main purpose of the update was to
diversify the local results and also prevent spam from ranking as
well.
Based on the dozens of ranking reports I’ve
analyzed, I would say this is the biggest update we have seen in
Local since Pigeon
in 2014. One of the main things that updated was Google’s
filter that applies to the local results.
The specifics
1. Businesses that fall outside of the
physical city limits saw a huge spike in ranking.
I wrote earlier this year about a problem we face
in Local
SEO Services where, if a business falls right outside the
physical city limits for a particular city, they have a seriously
hard time ranking for any keywords that include that city name. These
businesses often don’t even fall into a city “technically,”
according to Google Maps.
After this update, many businesses like this saw
massive increases in their local ranking. Here is an example.
Direct Inspections was a business in Sarasota that
I did a consultation for recently. They really wanted to rank for
keywords like “home inspector sarasota.” They fell outside of the
physical borders of Sarasota and were technically in a
census-designated place (CDP) called Gulf Gate Estates. Like most of
these cases, their mailing address is in Sarasota.
On August 6, they ranked #31 locally for “Home
Inspector Sarasota,” and I came to the conclusion that ranking for
keywords like that was a lost cause without an address inside the
physical city limits. We have lots of clients in this scenario and
have seen that even after years of doing the right things, their
local ranking just doesn’t budge for those types of keywords.
After the update, their ranking jumped to position
10 (Yes, an increase of 21 positions). We saw the exact same patterns
for all other businesses we tracked that fell into this category.
2. Google is now filtering based on
address and affiliation.
Previously, we would often see a local
filter applied to the local results that filtered out profiles
that shared a similar phone number or domain.
For example, you might have a chiropractor office
that has three separate listings for individual practitioners and
then one listing for the practice itself. These separate profiles
would all link to the same website and use the same phone number.
Usually, only one or two of these would show up in the local results,
and the others would be filtered.
This makes sense, as Google regularly filters
duplicate content organically, and showing their users tons of
results from the same company isn’t necessarily what’s best for
users. When you are searching for a new dentist, do you really want
to see the same office listed several times?
Since this update, we are seeing a lot of
businesses filtered out due to the address of the business being the
same as another listing in their same category (same type of
business). Here is an example.
You search “personal injury attorney palmdale,”
and you get 16 results in the Local Finder. There are at least five
listings using the address 1008 W Ave, Palmdale, CA, that are all
personal injury attorneys. Currently, one is showing in the Local
Finder and the other four are filtered:
Stefyan
Law Firm — showing
- DeVille Law Group Inc — filtered
- iAccidentLawyer — filtered
- Nadrich & Cohen — filtered
- Wilshire Law Firm — filtered
Broland over on the Local
Search Forum pointed out that you can see the filtered listings
if you just slightly zoom in on the map in the Local Finder. When I
do that for this query, I now get 61 results — and most of the
filtered results I referenced above are now showing.
In another case I looked at, a business owner had
two listings that were named differently, had different phone
numbers, different websites and different addresses.
We tracked his ranking daily and used a tracker by BrightLocal
that also took screen shots of the search results every day.
Each day that one listing showed up, the other did
not. They kept flipping back and forth but never appeared together at
the same time.
At first, I was confused at the connection because
their entire Name, Address, Phone number (NAP) profile was different.
The client then explained that they are technically in the same
building even though they have different addresses. The address
varies based on which side of the street you come in on.
This information helped me confirm that Google is
a bit more sophisticated than just looking at the address you enter
in Google My Business (GMB).
(On that note, many have tried to escape the
filter by simply adding a suite number. This has not worked on any
case I’ve looked at.)
In another case, it got even crazier. There is a
dentist I work with who owns two different practices. They are both
on the same road but have completely different addresses and are not
in the same building. They have different NAPs, different doctors,
the sites aren’t hosted together, and they are not claimed in the
same Google account. The only connection is that he owns both, and
technically, the parent company that owns both is what would be
listed on their business license.
I’ve known for a while now that Google often
asks for business licenses when business listings get suspended,
but it seems now that Google really knows a lot more about who owns
multiple companies in the same industry than I suspected.
In the case of this dentist, his two practices
used to both rank in the 3-pack for various keywords. Currently, I
cannot get them to trigger together. Based on what I type in, I get
either one or the other.
Keep in mind, this filter is not the same
as a penalty. Google isn’t removing the listing or
preventing it from ranking for anything at all. Instead, it works
much like the organic
filter, which picks the “best” and most relevant listing and
filters others that are too similar.
I often see different listings ranking for
different keywords, so while the law firm’s listing ranks for
“personal injury attorney,” the individual lawyer’s profile
might rank instead for “motorcycle accident attorney” if it had
more relevance (like reviews that talk about motorcycle accidents).
3. The physical location of the searcher
is more important than it was before.
A company contacted us for a consultation, worried
about this algorithm update. They noticed that a ton of their
locations were no longer ranking in the 3-pack. When we looked into
it, it turned out that since they were searching from their head
office in Alabama, they were seeing something totally different than
a user down in Texas, where one of the businesses was located.
The business was in Richland Hills, Texas, and the
farther away you got from the city when searching, the more zoomed
out the map got, and the more the listing dropped in ranking as a
result. They were seeing the business as being seventh on the list
for a [service + city] keyword in Alabama, whereas a user in Richland
Hills, Texas, would have seen the listing as first.
It seems that since this update, it’s more
important than ever to make sure the searcher location
is set to the right city when tracking ranking. A tool that allows
you to do that is this
one by Bright Local.
4. Search results vary more based on
slight variations of the keyword searched.
I’m seeing lots of reports of variations of the
3-pack based on slight keyword variations. Previously, you would
often see fairly similar results if you typed in “Los Angeles
Chiropractor” or “Chiropractor Los Angeles” or “Chiropractor
Los Angeles CA.”
Since the update, we are seeing a lot more
fluctuation between similar keywords. In some cases, I’ve looked at
a listing that was filtered for one query but then appeared back in
the local results if you added the state abbreviation to the keyword.
5. The local filter seems to be running
more independently from the organic filter.
In the past, we used to find that if Google
filtered
out your website organically (or filtered out the specific page
that you were linking your listing to), this had a negative impact on
ranking.
Since the update, I’ve seen tons of examples of
businesses that rank very high for competitive terms that are linking
to pages that are filtered organically.
One case I looked at was a cleaning company that
had multiple sites. One of the sites is getting filtered everywhere
organically because it is too similar to another of the sites (which
shows organically). The client happened to be linking the local
listing to the site that was filtered, which historically has been
known to tank ranking.
After the update, the client saw a massive spike
in the ranking, even though the URL he was using on his GMB listing
was a page that was filtered organically.
Another example was a business that ranked twice
after the update. They have two listings on Google for the same
business, and before the update, only one of them ranked in the
3-pack (The other would have been filtered). The difference between
the two listings is that one links to the www version of their
website and the other listing just goes to the http://domain.com
version (no www).
Organically, Google is smart enough to realize
this is the same site (One version does not 301 to the other, so it
is set up incorrectly), and Google hasn’t indexed both versions,
but this is another example of how the local filter and the organic
filter seem to be completely different and less connected than they
were before.
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