As reported by Mike Blumenthal earlier this week, Google Local has shifted from the 7 Pack to a 3 pack. The shift was first reported as a possible test in various markets, is now rolled out to even more markets and should be nationwide soon.
The shift from a Local 7 Pack to a Local 3 Pack is a horrible user experience for several reasons. Instead of seeing 5 or 7 local results, there are now only 3. Those three local results:
UPDATE: I spoke with another Google rep today about a separate issue but asked about Disabled/Pending listings. She told me the same thing the previous rep told me but went into more detail. She stated that this is a new tactic Google is using in order to combat the rampant spammers who attempt to take control of G+ listings or make fake listings.
What the Google team does is make sure the business website, Google Plus page and any Search items are exactly the same for each listing. If the website has a phone number ending in 5432 but the G+ page has a number ending in 5431, the listing is marked as spam and goes under a manual review. Once the spam team reviews the listing, it can be reinstated if the information is corrected.
This is welcomed news and shows how serious Google is about getting information 100% correct all the time. Again this is a brand new tactic and seems to be working well, although it is a pain for those of us in the bulk feeds. At least we will know if our information needs to be corrected and why. Just make sure your business information matches exactly everywhere it is listed!
Original Post: Those of us who frequently spend time in the Google My Business Dashboard know of its issues all too well. While the support Google provides for GMB is much appreciated, it leaves something to be desired. Phone support is shoddy at best and there are continuous issues with listings which confuse us all.
UPDATE:Â Since I posted this morning, Professor Maps got an update from Google with a copy of the warning email they send and SEL did a nice write up about the issue as well.
For those of you who work in Google My Business accounts often, this may be news. I was working in a GMB Bulk Feed account yesterday and noticed several of the thousands of listings in the account had a notice of “Disconnected“. The notice said, “This location can’t be connected to Google right now. If this problem continues for more than two days, try deleting the location and adding it again or contact support.”
Digital marketing, specifically Local SEO, is extremely challenging and only getting more so with the addition of new Google algorithms, Mobile updates, Phantom Updates and the removal of Local Packs. How do you keep up with all of the changes and fluctuations in the local area?
When Google declared that content was king, the digital space exploded into a mess of content and most of it is crap. The challenge is navigating through the garbage and finding real information – gems of content you cant go without, nuggets you want to share which benefit your clients and then ultimately, your bottom line.
Below is a list of my 35 Go-To Peeps when it comes to Local SEO. These are, in my opinion, the top Local SEO people/companies which continually produce relevant, timely and high quality information. These are the people I turn to when I want no-nonsense, breaking information.
For businesses who want to rank in the Local landscape, there are many different aspects small business owners need to understand in order to be found online. There is an overwhelming amount of information to digest, no shortage of SEO experts to tell you what you need to be doing and minimal amount of time to do any of it.
Small business owners in particular should have a strong, responsive website, with unique, neighborhood relevant content, a social media presence and an ongoing digital strategy. This can be a tall task for any business owner, let alone those who do not fully understand Local SEO.
Every small business owner has done this at least once since their business has been open. They go to Google, type in their information and scan the Page 1 SERP. It’s natural. Business owners want to know how they show up in Google. What’s also natural is having the business website show up first (hopefully). What shows up next though? Facebook? Yelp? Something else? Whatever the results are, hopefully it is their own business.
Google My Business launched to most businesses in June of 2014 and signified a major investment from Google in local business. Google, always looking toward future, appears to be solidifying local business as their foundation for the future. Many businesses were able to use Google My Business (GMB) immediately upon release, while other, larger, branded companies had to wait several months for the rollout.
Originally known as Google Places, Google My Business is designed to help local businesses seize control of their digital marketing presence. This powerful tool allows businesses to manage general business information, Google Reviews, Google Plus, Adwords and Analytics in one easy to use home. It also provides a way to manage the local digital landscape from Google Search, Google Maps and Google Plus on one dashboard.
The Google Panda algorithm was first deployed in February of 2011 and effected up to 12% of search results, most notably for us – our website. The algorithm targeted low quality websites with thin content, high ad to content ratios and other quality signals such as content farms. We got smoked by this algorithm and continued to get dinged each time a new version of Panda was released to the wild.
I’ve read others say that once you get hit by Panda once, you somewhat flatten out and it doesn’t keep hurting you. My perspective on that is different. Our website continually got hit and each time it took a good portion of our traffic – anywhere from 5-20% of whatever the current level of traffic happened to be. Now, this was our own fault mind you. Some of it was because we were lackadaisical in changing our content from standard, un-unique, nearly duplicate content on nearly all of our city/state/zip code pages and some was because I was still pumping out guest blogs which were of the same, poor quality as our website content. I take full responsibility.
I’ve had this theory for a little while now and I’m going to finally let it out of the box. Inspired by a great read on Andrew Shotland’s blog, he spits a few theories of his own. Andrew has been most vocal about how crappy the Pigeon algortithm has been and that G needs to clean it up. One of his theories on why the SERP’s are so bad is the “the combination of overweighting of Google’s brand algorithm and the narrowing of the radius for many local queries could have pushed some of these big brands out of the local packs”.
via http://www.questioningcreatives.com/mark-chambers/
What is PigeonÂ
By now, we all know what Pigeon is about. A quick recap for those who are behind….On July 24th, Google launched a new local algorithm, later dubbed Pigeon by Search Engine Land. Results are still coming in though it appears the algorithm is a huge shake up in local search as both Google Maps and Web results were impacted. It is supposed to provide more useful, relevant and accurate local search results which are more closely tied to traditional web search ranking signals. (I will prove later why I think this is bullshit.) As of now, Pigeon has only rolled out to US results though it will most likely roll out to other countries and languages in the near future.
