Homepage dropped from Results as I get #1 Local

[TimNealon]

Today, I noticed for a website I have (www.ghosttoursinsavannah.com) the homepage dropped out of the rankings for only one keyword. This site was previously number 3 for s specific keyword, 'Savannah Ghost Tours'.  This keyword is also the keyword most customers search for, by far. Hence my mini-panic. All other keywords (roughly 200 of them) I was previously ranked for are still, pretty much, in the same location rank-wise that they were before. This is for Google by the way.

The other thing I noticed is that for many keywords I am all of a sudden the (A) Local Result. I wasn't even on the map previously. Now, the keyword for which my homepage dropped from the rankings, 'Savannah Ghost Tours' is also the 'name' of my company according to Google Local.

I haven't had this happen before and am quite confused by it. If anyone can help me understand why this happened and if there is anything I can do to get my organic ranking back, I would appreciate it.

The only change I made wasn't even to the site. I did go out and use GetListed to add my company to a number of sites, that is all I have done in the past month.

Also, These two things happened the same day, the drop in rank and the promotion to number one position for local.

google-rankings.png

[MattAntonino]

The changing title is because you have duplication in your title.  You have this:

<title></span><span>Savannah Ghost Tours | Savannah Georgia | Walking Ghost Tours</span><span></title>

By duplicating Savannah twice, Ghost twice and Tours twice, you've forced Google to remove your title and use a "related" one.

Also check this: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35624  "Google's generation of page titles and descriptions (or "snippets") is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page as well as references to it that appear on the web. The goal of the snippet and title is to best represent and describe each result and explain how it relates to the user's query."

You can try to limit this with:

Your second part of the query about local results - you will only show up on page 1 once on a general query like this.  So if you're in the A spot, you won't also be in the other portions of the page.  Local results vs. the other organic results is a balancing act. We've found if you over-submit local, you will rank A local but won't necessarily rank for organic on non-7 block searches.  Try to balance the GetListed with some "regular" link building and that stuff should even out.