This update came in at a shitty time for me with most clients about to go into sale, which means looking at local search volumes to try and work out exactly how they've been impacted by Pigeon is really awkward, I can't compare before and after, I'm comparing just after and a bit longer after.
Also the clients tend to have different models - so some have verified physical stores, some have no stores but case study or other localised pages, some have franchise models etc.
So where I am now is seeing changes but narrowing down the exact changes for each client is proving tough. You think you have a pattern and then discover that for some reason a place they have no store is sending three times the traffic you'd expect. And the PR companies aren't much help at identifying if it could be from local coverage rather than SERPs results.
soooo - anyone else have any insight? We're approaching six weeks and normaly I would have told clients at least a borad approach to making the most of the update by now - although my reasons for not being sure are sound, its also frustrating!
I've only gotten serious about local since the update, but I'm really digging it.
Firstly, are you tracking just organic, or are you targeting mappack/7pack as well? A lot of rank reporting tools won't report 7pack and you can have a site at the top of the pack ranking #1-#4 total on page including organic, with the tool only reporting your organic rank which could be another page.
Also, map listings aren't very stable or reliable. Changes/updates/reviews don't always stick, things disappear often. Some results are totally broken but more rare. It seems something is amiss with propagation of data across datacenters and old states or snapshots get rewritten over newer ones. (Total personal guess, but that's what it feels like.)
I try to avoid reporting on rankings - i do average and a sampling from WT but I try to get clients focussed on overall traffic and quality of what lands - so no other tools in use here. I obviously do the odd manual check re map packs but the majority of clients are out of town centre or non verified locations so that doesn't tend to help me much for searches where location is specified and who knows how you check from varied locations in different owns on regular basis!
I'm getting the feeling the datacentres are a bit screwy too. I've had a places (sorry, GMB) account which reverted to an old owner recently, let alone data dropping out. But places has always been a bit tempramental for me anyway so I don't know if thats update related or just business as usual
It does just feel like its going to roll back a bit. But they're taking a very long time to do so if that's the case. Normally my gut is pretty good at whats going on but this time I have notiing to back that up, and no solid data to back anything else up either :-\
Usually the bigger terms have city, state included, at least in my area. So, I can see the correct map rank with those from anywhere in the US. The non-city, state rank is usually similar from within the city.
I think the major update was not 100% ready, but what seems odd is they haven't really seemed to have made any fixes. Makes me think another big update is on the horizon, I think it's been too long for a potential rollback.
ah in the UK it rolled out end December. Its a bit different from The US I think. Broadly the same though.
oh that's right I forgot you guys got the delayed launch/update.
The biggest difference from what I understand is the dropping of a lot of mappacks, and to rank there requires a bit better organic type signals. Typically, once you get on the front page in organic, you can easily rank top of mappack.
its wierd here - even when we rank #1 (even when our average ranking is #1 for a generic term, which I hve a few of) putting that term into g now returns us organically first and then low down or not at all in mappack. Its also not sorting by distance from search location, G+ existance, number of reviews, alphabetically or number of times word appears in homepage - the only consistant thing this morning is that all the stores in map pack have the exact match phrase in their store name....
gah. Would love this if I had time to play. Right now I don't ::)
>Its also not sorting by distance from search location, G+ existance, number of reviews, alphabetically or number of times word appears in homepage
That stuff doesn't really matter much. A bit more focus is on businesses close to center of city.
That and citations. If you are ranking solid in organic, especially number 1, you should be top of mappack too, if you build/correct solid citations. NAP consistency is key, and good ones.
I've seen dead businesses ranking in maps without a verified listing, no photos, no reviews, no nothing. Simply ranking off of rusty, yet very solid, citations.
>gah. Would love this if I had time to play. Right now I don't
Working with maps has been a real shot in the arm for me, something new and different really grabbed my interest and attention.
Let me know if you'd like me to take a look, I'd be glad to.
cheers - will ping you a DM :)