My Business Listings Get Updated
Big news, this morning I’ve noticed quite a big update to the Google My Business listings.
Web design terms are finally back for local business listings. Google stopped showing these years and years ago, so it’s strange to see them back.
From a few searches I’ve done it’s pretty obvious that Google is showing Google Business listings more prominently and frequently than before.
The listing for ‘Web Design Ni’ doesn’t even have a website and the Google Business listing page as far as I’m aware hasn’t been claimed, there are no reviews, photos, posts and video. It’s a poor listing and shouldn’t be anywhere near the first page of results. In fact I’ve seen some very poor business listings appear alot higher than some very well developed ones with no obvious reason as to why.
Google seems to be switching between 3 results and 7 packs on a desktop search.
[Update 23rd Dec 2014] Google has confirmed that their local Pigeon update, which rolled out in the U.S. on July 24, 2014 has now expanded over last week to the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
[Update 11 Jan 2015] Google seems to be sticking alot more on 3 pack listings.
December 18th, 2014 at 8:50 am
Don’t affect me much. Doesn’t seem to apply to any town (Newtownards for example) outside of Belfast. And most search terms related to PPC won’t even show local listing in Belfast.
December 18th, 2014 at 7:04 pm
I did a search for dunmurry related web design terms and the 7 pack local listings showed up.
It can be a bit of a kick in the balls if you’ve optimised and spent time on your organic profile and rankings, and then comes along a site that is merely a Google Business listing with little optimised content that out of the blue starts to rank above you and steals your traffic.