The Vicinity Algorithm Update: Is anyone seeing major shifts in local rankings? With reviews being at the focus?

[sixthcitysarah]

Hi all,

I was hoping to see if anyone else has been seeing changes in the local pack over the past week?

My team and I have been seeing tons of new businesses, that were not in the local pack before, all ranking ahead of others. And the only thing they have in common is a high level of reviews.

Keyword stuffers are still ranking up there as well, but the newcomers with high reviews don't even have their main category as the most relevant to the search. (Ex: Website Designers are ranking for SEO terms above all other Internet Marketing Providers/Marketing Agencies that used to rank)

I know Google released another product reviews update on Dec 1, but in the past, I don't believe it was ever noted to impact local as well.

Curious on everyone's thoughts!

 

[sixthcitysarah]

I'm seeing filter changes in the sense that a business that was filtered before is now ranking and one that was ranking is now filtered. I think the main trigger for the case I was looking at was the one business had keywords in the business name which was helping them avoid the filter. That is no longer the case and one of their competitors in their building is ranking instead.

For us, we are in the same office building as our top competitor (arguably one of the most popular/known marketing agencies with a large presence in the U.S.) and we always shared the local pack with them. But after the update, we completely dropped off and they have stayed on, as did another local spammer. We don't use keywords, but they both do. So this update is just hard to understand, we haven't been able to recover anything. But was thinking maybe since their profile is stronger and we "share" and address, we may be getting filtered.

 

[JoyHawkins]

@seosemsocial I have done 2 write ups on it thusfar with some observations:

The Vicinity Update: What You Need to Know About Google's Largest Local Algorithm Update in 5 Years - Sterling Sky Inc

On December 8th, one of our forum users asked about some serious differences they were seeing in the local pack results. The thread quickly started getting a lot of replies from users that were noticing similar patterns. Earlier today, Google confirmed that this was an algorithm update that...

www.sterlingsky.ca

The 'Vicinity Update': Winners and losers from the November 2021 local update

Google rolled out a local update between November 30 and December 8. It seemed to focus on changes around proximity and distance.

searchengineland.com

 

[monopolists]

Here is one example I'm seeing in the home services vertical. Companies with exact keywords in their name are now taking up 2 of the 3 top spots in Maps. I know in some verticals/markets companies with keywords in their name were demoted after the update, but not in this example.

Three strong listings were all demoted out of this 3-pack and replaced by turd listings.

 

[Theo1313]

Pretty sure it basically just shrank the radius in general, regardless. I think that is why they call it the vicinity update.

For service-based businesses, it has not been great but I am sure for local coffee shops it has been great. I am still hoping for some kind of rebalancing because every day I still see a negative in search and maps views. Not sure what more I can do because I was already doing every best practice there is in the book and beyond. Other than opening more locations in every country, I guess some of us have to accept the loss and hope for other streams to pop up.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Correct - my screenshot was from Places Scout.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey All! I am seeing some major shifts for some businesses that got destroyed with this update (rankings are back closer to what they were before). Is anyone else seeing this?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah, I'm seeing some major differences in a few that I just spot checked. It looks like changes happened around December 6th so they might not stick. Some of them are drastically different.

Like, look at this SERP on December 2nd vs today:

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Yeah, I'm seeing some major differences in a few that I just spot checked. It looks like changes happened around December 6th so they might not stick. Some of them are drastically different.

Like, look at this SERP on December 2nd vs today:

Really interesting too for that to see the shift with the "Their website mentions: [your exact query]" to all the others as well.

 

[0001q0X]

What is it with some law firms and the myth that setting your hours as "open 24/hours" is helpful? I wonder where it came from.

 

[JoyHawkins]

A lot of them use call answering services that answer 24-hrs a day which is why they want their hours displayed like that.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I wanted to clarify that the industries we're seeing this in are also lawyers, particularly personal injury lawyers.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Here's another example where the 3pack is literally completely different than it was before. Searching from 90010:

Before (Nov 27):

After (Dec 9):

@JoyHawkins I'm not familiar with that area but based on the maps it looks like it got more zoomed in on the area? as before it was more spread out?

 

[dakotawilliams]

@dakotawilliams that's super interesting, I have definitely seen that before for businesses with no reviews but the new businesses I am seeing ranking for SEO/marketing terms all have a high average rating and over 20 reviews

Well at least it sounds like there could be some logic to the changes to the local pack for SEO/marketing terms! lol

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Well at least it sounds like there could be some logic to the changes to the local pack for SEO/marketing terms! lol

somewhat but not really, most of the people now ranking are web design companies that (for whatever reason) have the highest review data, and don't even really offer what the search is about

 

[AndySimpson]

Here's another example where the 3pack is literally completely different than it was before. Searching from 90010:

Before (Nov 27):

After (Dec 9):

Good old Wilshire Blvd, the "go-to" location for PI firms in Los Angles?

...and yes, seeing some fluctuation for PIs

 

[rgblocal]

Seeing an odd mix of hyper optimized - niche Google site linked from listing, business name registered with keywords, etc) - and some otherwise 'blank' listings creep up, with few/no reviews, but long history.

 

[JWDM]

It definitely shook up personal injury. I have had clients in the top 2 for the last few years going to 8 and 13. The top results that are showing do not make any sense. I am hoping for a correction soon.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Ya I am still not seeing any leveling out from whatever this is, even a week or so later!

 

[Rob]

Same, and the business that took our place should not be knocking us out. I'm starting to wonder if we simply got knocked down because no physical office so we have to hide the address. Yet were still showing up in local pack in surrounding areas.