How did the March 2023 Core Algorithm Update Impact Local Rankings?

[JoyHawkins]

I'm still digging into this but from what I can see thusfar, most of the major changes happened in the local packs right at the end. The update ran from March 15 to 28, 2023.

Here is an example for a personal injury lawyer (comparing March 13 to April 3):

What are you guys seeing?

 

[JS Girard]

I was looking at a GBP just yesterday and noticed something similar. There was absolutely no reason for it being completely absent from ranking as it had a significant amount of fresh reviews (26 vs. average of 10-15)... and it struck me: even though most business in this vertical should be hiding their addresses, only three business out of sixty that were in the grid were SABs.

[SNIP]

Update on this: my anomalous SAB clients have since fixed themselves to rankings more in line with what I would expect to see. What about you @Lahsa H. ?

 

[Lahsa H.]

Update on this: my anomalous SAB clients have since fixed themselves to rankings more in line with what I would expect to see. What about you @Lahsa H. ?

They are recovering, but very slowly

 

[chadkimball]

As I looked deeper I realized the ranking drops I saw started back in February, so I dont think they are from the March core update

 

[rgblocal]

We did see dramatic ranking drops for one of our clients. Service area type business with address not visible. Their website beats everyone else in terms of content, DA, backlinks. The only thing I can see where they need improvement to match/beat the competition is more reviews. But still digging into why. Anyone else?

I have seen this on occasion as well.

 

[JS Girard]

I've recently theorized that Google fiddles around the effects of the ratio of shown/hidden addresses. That is, we had noticed that if industry-wide, 99% of GBPs are showing address (e.g. Massage therapists), the GBPs with hidden address rank poorly. If google starts doing that at query level instead of category-wide, a lot of GBPs are going to see their rankings fall off a cliff.
This is fully theorizing, but... take this query that returns EXACTLY those six results. Our client is ranking for other keywords, but for this one, it is mysteriously ranking last. Review numbers aside, they are the only one hiding their address in an industry (accounting) where this is uncommon.

 

[JoyHawkins]

if industry-wide, 99% of GBPs are showing address (e.g. Massage therapists), the GBPs with hidden address rank poorly.

We have observed this as well.

 

[Blueviolet38]

We have observed this as well.

This 100%. SABs have been slaughtered.

I still think there's a bit of a glitch as sometimes the SABs I work with don't appear at all on search.

I'm hopeful of a correction as I don't think the way they're ranking/hiding SABs at the moment makes much sense.

 

[rgblocal]

We did see dramatic ranking drops for one of our clients. Service area type business with address not visible. Their website beats everyone else in terms of content, DA, backlinks. The only thing I can see where they need improvement to match/beat the competition is more reviews. But still digging into why. Anyone else?

I have experienced this exact scenario

 

[rgblocal]

I've been keeping track of 25 GBPs, and I found out that the rankings of 20 of them have dropped in the past week. Out of those 20, 18 are SABs. Drops are terrible, from 3 pack, to out of 21. Some of them are recovering, but very slowly...

Are they all the same primary category?

 

[Shihab]

I am unsure if this is related, but I got two results for business profiles at the same address using the same category. I'd love to get @ElizabethRule's take on this!!

which extension are you using to show search this business section?

 

[JoyHawkins]

which extension are you using to show search this business section?

That is the GMB Everywhere Chrome extension

 

[Lahsa H.]

Are they all the same primary category?

3-4 of them yes, pest control. Others are from diff niches

 

[Blueviolet38]

Seeing some fluctuations today again. The glitch where companies don't show seems to be becoming less of an issue but it still happens sometimes.

Anyone else seeing fluctuations?

 

[gray0620]

@JoyHawkins, in my market of Fort Myers, FL it appears google has massively reduced the rankings of my business as well as the other main competitors in my marketplace (those that have more reviews and authority) compared to other businesses that have less reviews and little or no SEO.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you seen this? If so, what can be done about it?

 

[gray0620]

I see many examples of unclaimed GBPs with no reviews ranking in the map pack. There has been a lot going on with local search in the past few weeks and months.

This is what we're seeing in my market. We have close to 200 reviews and clinics that have no reviews are beating us. It's insane.

 

[keyserholiday]

@JoyHawkins, in my market of Fort Myers, FL it appears google has massively reduced the rankings of my business as well as the other main competitors in my marketplace (those that have more reviews and authority) compared to other businesses that have less reviews and little or no SEO.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you seen this? If so, what can be done about it?

What is your business category?

 

[JoyHawkins]

This is what we're seeing in my market. We have close to 200 reviews and clinics that have no reviews are beating us. It's insane.

You need to look at ranking on a grid, not a single point. You'll see lots of listings like this that rank for a single spot but they don't generally rank for a very wide radius.

Usually, the biggest factors that influence ranking are the business name (ie: both these listings have "chriopractic", the primary category ("chiropractor"), reviews (recent ones), and the content & structure of the website.

 

[keyserholiday]

So I have been removing a ton of practitioner business profiles. 98% are unclaimed. Once Google removed them, they get replaced with another unclaimed and auto generated business profile. It’s very rare for me to go into a market and not find an unclaimed business profile ranking in the map pack. A lot of SEOs talk about how Google emphasis YMYL, but the map pack results contradict this.

 

[JS Girard]

We have dozens if not hundreds of SABs amongst our clients. I can confidently assert that not all of them have lost rankings.

What I can say, though, is that some profiles that should absolutely be present somewhere (not necessarily top-3, but somewhere in the, say, top-20) are completely disappearing and instantly reappear when we show the address.

One pattern that shows in several cases is the combination of being a SAB and being outside the targeted area, and I can confirm that showing the address immediately puts the profile in at least top-10 positions. Note that reviews and the small size of the area mean most results are in fact outside the limits to begin with, so there is no reason that specifically having the address hidden should be a problem.

 

[25YearsInTheTrenches]

I can say without question it had a large impact on local rankings. I cannot divulge more information but yes, it did have a large scale impact.