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]

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.

Are the other businesses using keywords or have more reviews/better ratings than your listing?

 

[dakotawilliams]

I'd be curious to know @sixthcitysarah or anyone else in this thread if the businesses that you noticed dropping in rankings had keywords in their business name? Our client that dropped in Chicago did have keywords in their business name, and I noticed that 2 of the 3 listings in the new local pack do not have keywords. We also have not seen rankings bounce back to what they were before December 7th - in fact, rankings seem to have gotten worse

 

[JoyHawkins]

I'd be curious to know @sixthcitysarah or anyone else in this thread if the businesses that you noticed dropping in rankings had keywords in their business name? Our client that dropped in Chicago did have keywords in their business name, and I noticed that 2 of the 3 listings in the new local pack do not have keywords. We also have not seen rankings bounce back to what they were before December 7th - in fact, rankings seem to have gotten worse

Yes, I have observed the same thing.

 

[Rob]

Our two major competitors hired agency's this year and one of them started to buy out every other company in area they could get their hands on. A 3rd company within our service area also hired a large agency but are not located in our main location. Both of our major competitors review profiles unnaturally grew to 3 figures (Uh huh) and I've had to start reporting B.S. GBP's that started to show up in our service areas.

The company that just knocked us out did a couple simple page tweaks and is magically growing reviews at a very quick pace as well. They do not have an overall well designed and optimized website either.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Our two major competitors hired agency's this year and one of them started to buy out every other company in area they could get their hands on and a 3rd company within our service area but not our main location. Both of our major competitors review profiles unnaturally grew to 3 figures (Uh huh) and I've had to start reporting B.S. GBP's that started to show up in our service areas.

The company that just knocked us out did a couple simple page tweaks and is magically growing reviews at a very quick pace as well. They do not have an overall well designed and optimized website either.

Ya I am seeing similar stuff with the reviews, a lot of the new people in the local pack for the terms I am looking at all have a lot of unnatural looking reviews/got a lot of them in a span of a few days

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Yes, I have observed the same thing.

I am seeing some keyword stuffers still in there but yes to no recovery since the 7th.

 

[Jonathan Sousa]

I still haven't noticed patterns causing this rankings to fluctuate, some of my clients have lost 50%.

I did this keyword inclusion test in the title and it seems to me that it still has a positive effect: https://static.localfalcon.com/tren...?&loop_delay=2.5&business=false&keyword=false

 

[Joey Abna]

On a few of our SAB's seeing a small drop in ranking in Google Search Console but it hasn't effected traffic from GBP.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

I still haven't noticed patterns causing this rankings to fluctuate, some of my clients have lost 50%.

I did this keyword inclusion test in the title and it seems to me that it still has a positive effect: https://static.localfalcon.com/tren...?&loop_delay=2.5&business=false&keyword=false

I am seeing similar fluctuations, some days we have 2 terms in the pack, others now its 8 if we are lucky, before it was around 60.

 

[HoosierBuff]

add to that issue - the rank tracker I'm using isn't picking up results in the map at all. . . so, while things look different it may have changed, or the tracker may not have picked it up.

It looks like the results did change though - compared to what I used to see.

 

[Maxw555]

Google just confirmed they released an update, it ended Dec 8:

Very interesting.. I’m seeing a lot of with no websites/ few reviews ranking in many industries. Doesn’t make sense.

 

[nathangdavidson]

Anyone seeing any service area businesses suffering particularly as a result of this confirmed update?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Anyone seeing any service area businesses suffering particularly as a result of this confirmed update?

Are you referring to listings that don't have a map pin?

 

[nathangdavidson]

Are you referring to listings that don't have a map pin?

Yes I am.

 

[Jonathan Sousa]

In addition to proximity, are you finding any factors that are relevant right now?

One thing I noticed is that many profiles, without verification, ratings and images started to rank in some regions, a possible strategy would be to request removal, since apparently they are inactive places.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

I'm seeing SAB listings (listings with no address) impacted but I'm also seeing listings with addresses hugely impacted as well so I wouldn't say one was impacted more than the other.

I think you mentioned this before (either here or in your article) but are you seeing increases in filtering at all? With businesses located at the same office buildings that are in the same industry?

 

[Ed209]

How much impact has everyone seen from the Vicinity update on city pages?

 

[rgblocal]

I work for service-based biz (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical) and have seen a huge drop, about 45% since the beginning of December. Our company is one of the largest in the area with a very well known brand name and local trust (been in biz over 55 years). I work all the time making sure our site, GMB, reviews (4.8 stars), and everything else is in tip-top shape and honest. I check all the boxes and totally white-hat. Here is just one chart from our GMB to illustrate the update's effect. Side note on the chart, I cannot figure out why there were zero data recorded from Dec 10 through Dec 13.

Couple of notes to add:

• We do not have keywords in our business name
• We have one office in the middle of our service area, which is about half the state

This might make sense if smaller local businesses are now rising to the top. Are you using a grid tracking tool? Might be helpful to see who is making moves.

 

[Chris Ratchford]

Anyone else noticing an absence of Yelp in the organic? I've run a few reports and I don't see much of Yelp for dental searches.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Just wondering what the upshot of this thread is now: 1-5-2022.

Are reviews now a ranking factor?
Thanks

a week or so before I posted this I saw some fluctuations happening that seemed to show businesses I never saw rank before that had insanely high review counts/ratings, but it didn't stick! figure it was part of the wave of the update rollout