My #1 (A) ranking client in Maps is now #38 after update?

[DarinPirkey]

We have a client with 4 locations and all of them do pretty well in Google Maps.  Since the latest update, we dropped from #1 (A) all the way down to #38 in Maps.  We're still #1 for our keyword in Organic but our Maps got crushed.  We use Yext for the citations but we also do some a lot manual ones too.  We have 3 reviews on that location but not sure why the big drop.  I'm not even sure where to being to get it back.

From our research:

1. We noticed our categories were a little out of order.  Our primary was "legal services" instead of "personal injury attorney" (we've now updated that.)

2. I've noticed that all the listings ahead of us, minus a few of them, have their homepage as their link.  We've always used a local landing page that has hand written directions on how to find us, our hours and who people will meet when they come in.  Things relevant to that location.

3. Our domain authority is a 40.  Our homepage Page Authority is 49 and our landing page for that location is a 22.

What else should we check to see what's happened?  Should I move the Google+ page to the homepage instead of the sub-page (as well as the citations we have)?

Thanks for your help!

[DonnaDuncan]

I'd keep my eye on it for a while longer vzPro. Maybe it's a temporary thing, and your rankings will recover.

I do have a couple of suggestions though, based on what you've said above. The suggestions probably won't help you recover from such a drastic change, but could help sustain your rankings after recovery.

• I'd try to diversify my reviews if I were you. Too many coming from a single source might look forced or unduly influenced to Google.
• I'd embed a Google map on your landing page.

It's good you fixed your categories, and I agree that using a local landing page for your listing is appropriate.

Are your competitors significantly closer to the city or town center than your client? It looks like the Google local algorithm update released a week and a half ago might be giving that more weight than it did in the past (although I find that hard to imagine, and it's probably too soon to tell).

[DarinPirkey]

Thank you Donna,

We do have a map embedded already on the page, we have schema markup on the page (both local business and attorney) and we have reviews on tons of sites but only 3 in Google itself.  We have reviews in yellowpages, yelp, some law directories, etc.  I'm not really sure how else I would "diversify my reviews".  None of them are staff or fake so how would you recommend I diversify them?

Their main location is in a smaller suburb of a much larger city.  There is 1 other law firm that is in this town and it's huge. (they do like $150 Million/year in settlements and have a large marketing firm doing their advertising, marketing and seo.  There are a few other small firms but we are both centrally located to the city.  Yes, they are a little closer to the centroid but if they were #1 in Maps and we were in the top 3 I would be good with that.  My client only spends $300k per year on advertising and they spend over $3 Million.  I can't fathom the drop to #38 in a city with maybe 10 or so competitors who most don't even have a "verified" map location.

[DonnaDuncan]

I misunderstood what you said about having 3 reviews. I thought that was all you had and they were all from Yelp.

I'm stumped too, based on your information. Hopefully it's a temporary thing and you'll soon recover. Do you want to share the name of the firm and the terms you're trying to rank for so I can take one last look?

[DarinPirkey]

I'd prefer not to.  Thanks for your time and thoughts on this.  I'm hoping it's just a temporary thing.  I'll update this Q&A with results in about a week or so.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey VZpro,

Your description of your client's location sounds quite similar to the client featured in this Mike Blumenthal post. Check it out!

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/08/03/pigeon-an-anecdotal-impact-report/

[DarinPirkey]

I called Google (technically they called me https://support.google.com/business/) and we worked it out.  They didn't know why and "couldnt' guarantee any fixes" but it is now again Letter A in the 7 pack.  Within two weeks of the conversation the listing came back.

[DonnaDuncan]

Great to hear you've recovered. Did you ever have a subsequent conversation to learn why this happened? Do you think it might have been an error?