For the past couple of weeks, Google's local rankings in the local pack and Google Maps results have been very volatile. Heck, even the past few days, the local SEO community is chatting up a storm on the changes. But Danny Sullivan of Google said on Twitter there is "no major updates or anything like that" in the local search algorithm.
He went on to say that this doesn't mean nothing is happening, he said "so there's nothing in particular we know of that should be doing this. Which isn't to say it's not happening." Give Google examples he said, "It would be useful if people have any recent examples. If they see it over the past day or two or so, or see it forward."
Here is Danny's tweet:
So there's nothing in particular we know of that should be doing this. Which isn't to say it's not happening, just no major updates or anything like that. It would be useful if people have any recent examples. If they see it over the past day or two or so, or see it forward.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 8, 2020
The BrightLocal tool is showing still significant changes, even today:
On Friday in the Local Search Forums, some were saying positions that were lost, returned:
Our positions on gmb were restored about 2 hours ago.
Was talking about this with Joy earlier, I have fielded quite a few calls from people asking if the sky is falling. All 3 calls (just today) were with companies that have exact match domain names and exact match keywords in listing names. (In compliance), BUT I do not think this is a major shakeup. I think it is just like what happened in November and it will settle in a week or so.
I own a service based business. We’ve been in the top 1-2 map positions for our main focus for 1+ year and secondary focus for 2+ Years. Last week I noticed we weren’t in the top 3 for either. The next day we were back on top. Following day dropped even further. Yesterday jumped back to the top. Today dropped back down. Most of my business comes from the maps section. I have an SEO company that’s working on our organic rankings. My first thought was that they were building spammy links that got me penalized. After reading this thread I’m not so sure. Is this the appropriate place to hire someone to audit my GMB and site?
We just dropped out again too!
So something does seem to be happening in the Google local search results but Google is not specifically aware of what it might be and is asking for examples.
Forum discussion at Local Search Forums & Twitter.
