Stranger Things Happening in Google Maps

[silverweb]

Hi,

I have noticed some peculiar occurrences on Google Maps for the past 10 days. In the morning and evening, my client's business consistently ranks at the top, often at #2, and occasionally even at #1 for certain 'near me' phrases. However, this high ranking lasts only for 30-50 minutes. Have any of you experienced a similar situation?

Thanks

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Sounds like it might be a filtering issue. Is there a competitor very close by?
I have seen also seen this when many of the businesses have the same keywords in their name.

 

[silverweb]

There are only 2 businesses at the same address; the rest are located at a distance. This has been happening since the November algorithm update. The strange thing is, our client's business ranks at the top during both morning and evening hours.

 

[JS Girard]

Hi,

I have noticed some peculiar occurrences on Google Maps for the past 10 days. In the morning and evening, my client's business consistently ranks at the top, often at #2, and occasionally even at #1 for certain 'near me' phrases. However, this high ranking lasts only for 30-50 minutes. Have any of you experienced a similar situation?

Thanks

Variation based on the time of day is documented. In your case... could it be because there are windows where you're open and the competitors are closed?

 

[silverweb]

@JS Girard You're correct. I've just realised it. They rank highly in the morning, around 8 am when his business opens, for about half an hour, and then again in the evening for another half an hour before closing. Is this a new test by Google?

 

[JS Girard]

@JS Girard You're correct. I've just realised it. They rank highly in the morning, around 8 am when his business opens, for about half an hour, and then again in the evening for another half an hour before closing. Is this a new test by Google?

Not exactly. In general, rankings that vary from one hour to the next are well known. Heck I've had ranking changes between two verifications done five minutes apart. It's also been known for a while that Google gives a boost to business opens right now/penalizes business closed at the time of search (depending on how you prefer looking at it ), which I think is a pretty sensible thing to do.

That's why some people insist on showing as open 24/7, but my old boss used to say "if you do that, you WILL inevitably get weird call from drunken/panicking people in the middle of the night at some point", and I don't recommend it myself.