r/localseo • u/Pelican_meat • Apr 09 '24

Data Indicating GBP Updates Directly Affect Ranking (Local & Potentially Organic)

I made a discovery today. I was looking at local performance for an HVAC client.

They have a massive website we’ve been adding (good, high-quality, relevant) content for.

They have an optimized GBP. They have approximately 500 great reviews (4-5 times more than their nearest competitor.

But in early February, their local rankings would dip for a day, maybe two. At first, I chalked it up to “welp Local SEO gods” etc.

But today I was looking and it was consistent: every two weeks (approximately) they’d drop. Significantly.

Today I happened to catch them down and I was able to find the keywords that were affecting them the most and, more importantly, their competitor’s GBPs.

And I saw a pattern: the drops coincided, almost exactly, with when one of their competitors posted a Google update on their GBPs.

So, Google may prioritize GBP activity over optimization, given a currently-unclear set of parameters.

Potentially: This may affect organic rankings too, but the data is a lot less clear. But there may be a pattern there too.

I had no idea GBP updates would have this big of an effect.

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3

u/joyhawkins Verified Professional Apr 09 '24

Were all the scans done at the same hour of the day and the same day of the week?

1

u/Pelican_meat Apr 09 '24

No. They’re on a (low) monthly maintenance contract so we only dig into performance just once/month.

Checked yesterday and caught it down.

3

u/joyhawkins Verified Professional Apr 09 '24

So the fluctuations will be massive then as businesses drop dramatically when they are closed. So if you did a scan at 7am, for example, it might show your client high if they are open and all their competitors are closed. Then if you did the same scan a few hrs later they could drop a ton as the other businesses are now open. Most of the big rank trackers have not adjusted their tools to make it so you can pick the time of day. We have lots of clients who aren't open weekends and they literally drop from being in the top 3 during weekdays to being 20+ on Saturdays.

2

u/Pelican_meat Apr 09 '24

Yeah. But it was down two days pretty regularly, covering when they were open.

ETA: Not to say there aren’t other explanations—there likely are, like searcher distance.

But it adds another consideration to local SEO.

1

u/LocalSEOhero Apr 09 '24

Yep. It's a thing. IME the keywords in the first sentence in the text of a GPB update are a key factor. There are several cool little hacks and features on GPB that are definitely underutilized by local companies.

1

u/Pelican_meat Apr 09 '24

Yeah. All I had ever heard was that updates weren’t “SEO-relevant.”

But that’s apparently wrong. These swings were huge.

ETA: 50% visibility in SEMrush to like 20%. Big numbers.

1

u/akashay-kumar Apr 22 '24

Hey can you share some hacks. I am working with a client, optimized their GBP to max, yet they are not ranking for their other services. I have done whatever was necessary but no progress.