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Hi WP-Pro! So, there has been a ton of buzz in the past week or so about zero-results SERPs (see an excellent article about this by Dr. Pete here on the Moz Blog: https://moz.com/blog/zero-result-serps Google ran a test of the above that they have since shut down. However, I don't believe this is what you've noticed. I think you are talking about what might be called a "Branded Knowledge Panel", in that a term Google used to show a typical 3-pack for is now being dominated by a single business, with their knowledge panel showing up on the right side of the SERPs and no competitors in sight. This is a huge pain in the neck when Google does this, as it leaves all other local businesses out in the cold. Basically, what has happened when you see this is that "something" has caused Google to believe that a single business is THE authoritative result for a search. This is fine when someone is searching for Taco Bell, but really annoying when someone is searching for "tacos". If an authoritative knowledge panel is negatively impacting a SERP for which you were previously competing, leaving your business out in the cold, you need to take a very close look at that competitor to see if you can figure out why Google is giving them this preferential treatment. I recommend doing a competitive local business audit to highlight areas where that competitor is strong and you are weak. And look at their use of features like Google Posts, Google Q&A, etc. to see if there is some way they've gotten ahead. Study their keyword optimization on their website. And, of course, take a close look to see if some kind of spammy behavior on their part may have gotten them this preferential treatment. There isn't a direct action you can take to force Google to show a 3-pack instead of an authoritative knowledge panel, but the general idea is that you've got to become stronger than your competitor so that Google realizes that there is more than one quality answer available to that particular search query. Unfortunately, you may have a long haul ahead.

Hi Wizkids964! I just want to say I'm sorry that your thread didn't receive replies from the community. I haven't seen any good, formal data to either verify or challenge your analysis, and I expect others in our community are in the same boat. What I have seen is videos like this one which hypothesize how to move the needle in Yelp: https://localu.org/blog/guest-video-top-10-yelp-tips-small-business-2016/ But they aren't broken down into percentages like you've done here. It would be nice to see more studies like this, and again, my apologies that no one here had data to help prove or disprove your hypothesis.

You're very welcome! So glad that it helped.

Do you mean what Moz products should you subscribe to?  Is this actually a product question?

Hi Wizkids, Thanks so much for bringing your question to the forum. I'm so sorry - I've read through your post twice and am not totally sure what you are asking. I agree, the Moz post you found is too old to use reliably. The entire lingo of Local has changed so significantly since 2011, as have many Google features. Can you simplify your question, please, to ensure that the community is getting to the heart of the matter? What precisely is your goal? What are you trying to track? Organic traffic from Google My Business listings to your website? Something else? If you can refine your scenario, I'm hoping we can find an answer for you. Thank you

My pleasure!

ok, Thank You, Will apply the same

Thanks Ruth, that all makes sense and the reason for our quality over quantity approach so far has been because we're committed to white hat techniques which will give us lasting results. As far as we see it, our website looks better than the competition, we have higher quality content and articles, we have higher quality backlinks, a better ahrefs rank (although understand this isn't a google metric). The only difference we can see, is the fact that we have less links. We're committed to building more authority to the site via high quality editorial links, however it is very frustrating to be outranked constantly by people who are using only spammy techniques. Another consideration is that one of our competitors who consistently ranks #1 on all of our keywords, has a 1 page website with 600 words of text on it, yet they're ranking for 700 keywords; most of which don't appear in their backlink profile which we have studied in depth, or on his site. It seems to be one rule for the competition and another for us.

Good suggestions from Brooks, but sounds like you've checked off the things he mentioned. So, typically, Google will display the one you designate as the profile pick, but as you've seen, not always. If you've removed the unwanted photo from your website, you can ask a GMB forum TC to help you get your listing updated. Here's a thread from Google's forum along those lines: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Enhance-Your-Presence/Photos-pulling-from-website-that-are-not-wanted-to-show/m-p/1119604/highlight/true#M6409 But, if you want to keep that photo on your website, you can try flagging the image from several accounts over the next few weeks to see if Google will get rid of it. If nothing happens after a few weeks, you could take this to the GMB forum, but I'm not sure they'll be able to do much unless the photo is really inappropriate, in which case, you may just want to remove it from the website. Other advice: be sure you're not using a logo as your profile pic. Google really doesn't like those and often will replace them. Be sure every photo you've uploaded to your GMB dash is of best quality and is something you'd be okay with having Google use to represent the business.

Really helpful answers, thanks! Okay, so what this business is eligible for is a single listing, representing their single physical location, and this should be located in a single account, although you can give multiple managers access to that account, if necessary. Right now, having multiple listings for a single location is a violation of these guidelines and could get the company into trouble for spamming: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en-GB To create further ineligible listings for service cities where they lack a physical location would also violate Google's guidelines and further heighten the risk of penalties. To resolve this, the business either needs to ask Google to help them merge the superfluous listings into the main, eligible listing, or if the details of the listings don't match because a fake address has been used, take steps to report that the business never existed there (see article, below to determine the right course of action). That main listing must accurately list the name of the business as its title (with no city names or other keyword modifiers) and should accurately represent the physical address and phone number of the physical business. Recommended reading: https://moz.com/blog/delete-gmb-listing I'm so glad you asked about this, and hopefully you can get this company back on a good track with how they're marketing their business. Please, let me know if you have any further questions.

You're very welcome

Looks like were are in the same situation. I have yet to find an explanation, but if I do, I'll follow up here to keep you in the loop.

If you refer to NAP for a name, address, and phone, well there is a lot of options some of them are mandatory. Google my Business and Bing are the standard. Then depending on your niche, location and the services or product you are offering there are several options like Yelp or Angie's List here is a list very useful 50 Online Local Business Directories. There's a hundred of tool to manage your local visibility, for me, the best is Moz Local.

Hey Paul, I'm so sorry that I just now saw your question. So, a "duplicate" listing is a listing that shares identical or near-identical NAP with another listing. Co-located businesses aren't duplicates if they have different names and phone numbers. That being said, if Co-located businesses share a category, then Google may filter one of the them out of the local packs, per the "Possum" effect.

Hi Johnny, I'd like to be able to give you a 100% certain "yes" or "no" answer on this, but Facebook's lack of documentation always makes me say "I think", instead of "I know", for fear I've overlooked some hidden thing about their system I don't understand. In this case, I "think" you should be fine so long as you are consistently designating the same location as the company headquarters so that its phone number and address are always the same across FB and the web. But, you might want to ask here, in case you get a different opinion: https://www.facebook.com/help/community

That's correct. If you don't have face-to-face transactions with customers, then you should not create Google My Business listings.

My pleasure! So glad to have you in the community.

Hi Tom, This has been extremely helpful! Good work man,

I would like to add, that I completely KW stuffing is not a good idea at all. Adding a city name will not really help you, adding a service type might. BUT, this is all very risky. Additionally, if you consistently are getting your name edited to what it reflects in the real world (As a TC I check the Secretary of State and the Street View) , there is a limit to the number of times a listing can be corrected before a suspension happens. In some cases, you may also end up with a hard suspension. (Especially if a TC gets involved.) Play by the rules, and make edits to competitors as Miriam suggested. Also, if you do the legwork report competitors that are using Virtual Offices/PO Boxes in the advertiser forums.