Total Impressions dropped for all my clients!

[Melissa Caldie]

Total impressions for all of my clients dropped significantly around February 18th. My team is very diligent about ensuring all listings meet quality guidelines and each client's listings are created under their own unique Gmail account.

Was there an update for maps that I am not aware of? What else could be causing this to happen across the board??

Any insight is appreciated!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Melissa,

I wonder if it's related to what's happening in this thread:

http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/nap-categories-dashboard-data/3701-listings-actions-removed.html

Linda, have you seen any reports at the G forum?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Melissa,

I'm starting to get a lot of similar reports so the good news it's not just your listings. I suspect there is either something buggy or there is an update of some sort happening.

Here is what I posted in that thread that Colan linked to: (Thanks Colan)

1st of all Places analytics are pretty hit and miss and I seldom even look at them. They are often buggy so that could be the case here. So if you are still ranking and listing is live and working right, I would not worry too much about the stats.

I'd 1st check to be sure the listing is working right. If you click view from dashboard does it go to the right listing?

Next I'd check to see if the ranking dropped. If it has there are many many reasons that could have happened and we'd need to investigate further.

If you care to post a link and give us more history and let us know if there was a major rank drop and give us one primary key phrase, I'll move this down to help and we can investigate in more detail.

I helped one person at the G forum yesterday that had this issue, but I have not had time to get over there today to see if there are more reports. Also have not had time to check email yet to see if Google emailed me anything about it or if other TCs have asked about it yet.

If I don't find any answers, I'll escalate to Google to see if they will tell us what's up.

Will report back here when I have news.

 

[Melissa Caldie]

Much appreciated!

If it's not a bug, my team is now wondering if this could be an indexing issue of some sort? We used to do null submits on every listing every 30 days, but stopped doing this in December. Is there any benefit to continuing this process?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes you should still "Poke" listings AKA null submit once a month. It's best practice and Google support still recommends it. (But I don't think that has anything to do with this issue and poking should not impact stats directly.) More info on poking and the benefits here. http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local-important/169-pokes-how-when-poke-your-place-page.html

Started new central post on this issue. Please stay tuned to this thread for updates.
http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local/3771-places-analytics-problem-impressions-actions-dropped.html

 

[mborgelt]

Yes, there has been a number of reports/conversation that the number of impressions have been reduced. Not sure if its a bug or a reset by Google. Those numbers (especially impressions) are not accurate in my mind.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Michael, see post above yours. I think it's due to the big UPDATE.

 

[curiouslyjade]

@Melissa, can you post links to pages that are affected? We're trying to look into this. Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks so much for stopping by Jade. I'll poke Melissa to be sure she sees this.

And FYI I've been discussing this issue lots of different places and guess I didn't get back to update this post. But at one point came to conclusion it was likely not related to the update since most are reporting that stats got stuck around Feb 19th and some are saying stats are still stuck even though update has passed.

The fact that Jade is looking into it indicates it's something else. So I'm glad Google is on top of it.

 

[Melissa Caldie]

It would be a ton of links unfortunately since a lot of our clients were affected. I don't think this would be a good means for doing so. Any suggestions on how else you would want me to notify you of the affected listings?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Melissa I think the engineers just need a few to look at, so if you could post 3 or 4 that should be good.

JADE - I've asked others for examples over in the main group thread about the problem here:
http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-local/3771-places-analytics-problem-impressions-actions-dropped.html

But Melissa post yours here in your thread since she asked you here and she'll be alerted when you post again.

Thanks!

 

[Melissa Caldie]

Sounds good! Here's a few:

https://plus.google.com/112268900225228085420/about?gl=US&hl=en-US

http://www.google.com/local/add/analytics?storeid=2621850536730322359&hl=en-US&gl=US

https://plus.google.com/106061074654357193902/about?gl=US&hl=en-US

https://plus.google.com/104345250449499252234/about?gl=US&hl=en-US

https://plus.google.com/109113915467946484650/about?gl=US&hl=en-US

 

[Kristen]

Good to hear this is likely a bug, I'm seeing the flat lined impressions as of February 19th across the board as well.

Everyone seems to say don't track the Places statistics. Other than tracking and reporting on Google analytics data and rankings, is there anything else we should be tracking and reporting to clients pertaining to their Google + Local page?

 

[bholder006]

Same is happening to all 40+ properties I am managing under my places account...

The highest trafficked (impressions/actions) location has had 1764 impressions from Feb 20 through Mar 11 (a 20 day period). The previous 20 day period (Jan 31 to Feb 19) shows 4700 impressions for that same property.

The properties in smaller communities are showing near zero numbers on impressions/actions. For example, one went from 191 impressions from Jan 31 through Feb 19 to getting only 9 impressions from Feb 20 to Mar 11.

So glad this is getting looked at.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi bholder and welcome!

Jade is still looking for examples, trying to help engineers track down this bug. So if you care to share 2 - 3 linkd I'll get them to her.

 

[Kristen]

I am experiencing very similar numbers as well. Hopefully Google will get this fixed soon.

---------- Post Merged at 10:26 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:21 AM ----------

Hi Linda,

Here are a few they can look into:

https://plus.google.com/101386402851899903649/
https://plus.google.com/109330905352160959734

Thanks!
Kristen

 

[bholder006]

plus.google.com/102229129533551593640
plus.google.com/110587430051123549284

Those are the listing locations for the two properties I mentioned in previous post about the stats drop.

 

[Linda Buquet]

plus.google.com/102229129533551593640
plus.google.com/110587430051123549284

Those are the listing locations for the two properties I mentioned in previous post about the stats drop.

Thank you, I will give them to Jade.

FYI, little tip on this one: https://plus.google.com/102229129533551593640/about
Google does not like every word capped like that and it often creates a pending review problem. Just thought I'd mention to help you try to avoid a problem.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I am experiencing very similar numbers as well. Hopefully Google will get this fixed soon.

Here are a few they can look into:

https://plus.google.com/101386402851899903649/
https://plus.google.com/109330905352160959734

Thanks Kristen, you are a gem!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Kristen and bholder, I just noticed a trend with both of yours. They are for chains or franchises or whatever.

So I'm curious are any of these via bulk upload?

Just looking for common denominators that could help engineers narrow the problem down.