Do Rankings Return After Temporarily Closing a Listing? + Updated Local Ranking Results from Our On-Page Tests
Happy Friday!
Do rankings return after marking a listing as temporarily closed..?
Buckle up for an extra long (& valuable) update with the SEO Mad Scientist! This week we circled back to the rankings of listings that we had reopened, after marking them as temporarily closed for a while (in a previous SEO test). Read below to find out the effects on the rankings!
+ See how on-page SEO impacted local rankings from a previous test we were running…
On this week’s episode of the SEO Vault, we discussed how to report wins for white label agencies, the different signals that affect GBP rankings, the Google October 2022 update being rolled out, and other SEO news!
SEO Updates & News This Week:
> Google Tests New Local Finder Design With Expanded Services Listing (SEO Mad Scientist Tests 🤔)
> Google October 2022 Spam Update Rolling Out – 11 Months After Last Spam Update
> Google: A Character Is Needed After The /? Of A URL To Be Unique
> Google Product Panel In Search Testing Expand Pricing Details
> Google Local “Preview This Place” Large Image Carousel
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This Week in the Local SEO Community...
This Week on The SEO Vault Episode 161
Hosts: Sophie Allen + Bucky Helms
What we discussed this week…
✔️ Signals that Impact GBP Rankings
✔️ Resonse to How We Report Campaign Wins
✔️ Lingering Impact from Google Spam Update
> Watch the Latest SEO Vault episode to catch up on the most recent local update and so much more.
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This Week in the Lab with SEO Mad Scientist
Closed GBP Rankings Revived & New GBP Onpage Signal Tests!
Hey there, mad scientist!
Let’s start this week with a quick recap of a test we concluded over a month ago. We were testing how a listing reacted to being “Temporarily Closed’.
Our active listing was marked temporarily closed on 8/17/2022. We observed Google taking away most to all the traffic in about 3 days, with our rankings completely disappearing after about a week or so.
Since then, we have put the listing back live and have yet to report the rankings coming back…
Well, we can now report that after a full 46 DAYS, our rankings have returned (almost all simultaneously). They also seem to be roughly the same as they were before marking the listing as closed. (listing was marked open on September 1st, 2022, and first ranking showed back on October 13th, 2022)
So it is safe to say that marking your listing as temporarily closed will cause your ranks to disappear, but they will return once marked open again. The only caveat is that rankings will take over a month to return once the listing is marked open again.
So, with that out of the way, let’s discuss some new tests we have in the oven…
Well, new results, but more importantly, we wanted to prove something we theorized on a previous test, so we decided to test it again…
Remember when we talked about Google pulling services from your website to list on your GBP, with which we saw a clear correlation in ranking increases? Here is another listing where you can see Google adding some services to our listing for us…
We just accepted these changes a few days ago, but let’s take a look at where these were pulled from in this case. Something to note, we did not include any keywords in our menu this time ;-) The images below are in order as they appear on the website, which leads us to believe there is not, in fact, any “specific section” that Google looks at…
- Digital Marketing Solutions
- Marketing Solutions
- Internet Marketing
Campaign Management
Customer Management
Telemarketing was not listed on our website anywhere, so it must be one that was pulled by association somehow in the algorithm, same as one of our tests long ago that pulled in appliance repair for a plumber due to some weird relevance factors we can only assume.
It is important to note the placement of other words on the website containing the phrases Google actually pulled. If you look closely at the snapshots, although each of these actual phrases only appears on our page ONCE, there are variations of the phrases and terms scattered through the content…
Now, before accepting these changes, had they impacted our rankings? That’s the real question…
The terms “Digital” and “Marketing” are in our business name for use to test some other variables, but we can see that these added services have made some impact before accepting them. Any that we have not posted currently have no rankings visible in the top 20…
Considering all these factors and looking at the over 20 scenarios where GBPs have pulled services from the website, we are starting to develop the “Perfect GBP Landing Page.” The goal is to get Google to rank our GBP listing in the top 20 for all our target terms, with ONLY onsite SEO…
From what we have seen so far, we believe this may be possible in many cases…
Join us next week to see the ranking results from accepting our GBP changes and more test updates in the ONLY place you get FREE SEO test data, directly to your inbox every week!
Until next time, as always, happy testing :-)
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