Google Places rankings go away, but organic rankings stay the same / get better?

[WhiteHat12]

Hello,

I hope you all can help me out here with the information I could provide. Anyways, the past number of months I have had 1 of our clients rank extremely high organically and on Google places. For example: My client is a law firm so if you search “CLIENTS-TOWN Attorney” they would come up organically on the first page and if you were in that town and search “CLIENTS-TOWN Attorney”  or even just “Attorney” they would also come up in the Google Places list. Now for some reason starting a week ago I noticed they have completely disappeared from Google Places. No changes have been done to their site and everything is the same as it was. Their organic searches are the same if not better than before. Do you guys have any clue as to why this happened and how I could possibly turn this around?

Thanks for your help in advance!

[goodlegaladvice]

something could have went wrong with your places listing make sure everything is right than search your term and click on the map for certain keyword and check and see what page you are on u might have just got bumped out of the top 7 if you find yourself in the first 2 pages just build citations to get yourself back up in top 7

[benjaminspak]

The past couple of days there as been some flux industry wide. http://mozcast.com/

• How much traffic are you loosing not having Google the places listing rank?
• Are your increased organic rankings going to get you the same, or more traffic?

If you can have something better with this new change with little work, spend your time on that.

[WhiteHat12]

The traffic has not really changed in any way. The main
reason this is important for us is because this client in particular is
obsessed with Google Places, and wants to see a strong ranking. They ranked for
every single lawyer term before, now they rank for none of them. Any idea of
the cause of this?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi WhiteHat12,

I did actually hear rumors that there was some sort of shakeup last Thursday or Friday, but do not have documentation of this to share with you.

When you state Google Places, do you mean +? Have you recently merged your client's Place Page with a + profile? Here is a list of recent issues after merging:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/09/19/google-pages-for-local-known-bugs-quirks-after-the-g-local-merge/

You might also like to try out this new analysis tool, just launched by Michael Borgelt. I've not had a chance to check it out yet, but it looks like it could be helpful in trying to assess problems:

http://www.51blocks.com/online-marketing-tools/free-local-analysis/

Without actually seeing the listing and investigating the account, it isn't possible to tell if there is a bug or penalty involved, or if the client has been surpassed by the actions of his competitors or if something else is going on. You may need to engage a Local SEO to consult with the client, because these issues typically take some hours to assess, due the large number of factors that can contribute to ranking changes. Hopefully, the 2 resources above will at least get you started in diagnosis.

Good luck!

[benjaminspak]

Thanks for sharing the tool Miriam! How'd you come across it?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ben,

It's still in Beta, but I know Michael and I think it looks pretty good, from my brief glance. Michael Borgelt is a really smart fellow. You're very welcome!