Had a local SEO client completely drop off in all rankings...?

[TaylorRHawkins]

Hey everyone!

I wanted to ask the Moz community on what I should be on the lookout for in this situation; I have a local SEO client, an orthopedic clinic, who out of nowhere completely dropped off the map. Their Search Visibility is now at .001%.

I really have no idea what would have caused this... I have dozens of other local SEO clients and have never seen this before.

[Roman-Delcarmen]

Probably has some penalty? what is the situation is this a new client with no visibility, or an actual client who almost disappear from Google.

A Google penalty is a punishment against a website whose content conflicts with the marketing practices enforced by Google. This penalty can come as a result of an update to Google's ranking algorithm, or a manual review that suggests a web page used "black hat" SEO tactics.

Recently Google made an update to the algorithm so you will need to check it is affecting that website.

[TaylorRHawkins]

This is an actual client who almost disappeared from Google.

I don't see how they could have gotten hit with a penalty, to be honest. We have been working with them for a while and haven't done anything different. Maybe a few tweaks to meta descriptions / title tags as we update their site.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Taylor,

Are you able to share the identity of the client? If not, my best advice is to investigate

1. Filters (like Possum)

2. Hard/soft penalties.

3. Bugs

[TaylorRHawkins]

The client is called Orthopaedic Associates, based out of Boise, Idaho.

You can view their site here: https://orthoa.com/

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Taylor,

While I don't have the necessary time to do a complete audit, let's take a quick look at a few things here:

1. Your client is at least not suspended. Their listing still exists at: https://www.google.com/search?q=orthopedic associates boise idaho&oq=orthopedic+associates+boise+id&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l3.6373j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&npsic=0&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=43612266,-116292485,1&tbm=lcl&rldimm=14815419333811269136&ved=2ahUKEwiIvfWg3P7cAhUmwcQHHWPdB0sQvS4wAHoECAEQEw&rldoc=1&tbs=lrf:!2m1!1e2!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:2#rlfi=hd:;si:14815419333811269136;mv:!1m3!1d15.045442483230412!2d-116.29248519999999!3d43.612266299999995!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1!2i1!4f13.1;tbs:lrf:!2m1!1e2!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:2

2. On the Contact Page of the Website, you are listing no street extension and a suite number. On the listing, you have no suite number. While Google doesn't pay attention to suite numbers, I am wondering why there is this discrepancy, which at the very least, is confusing for patients. So, that's something to clean up. The website is listing your client at W. Emerald. The GMB listing at Emerald St. Which is it? Choose one and clean the rest up. Your phone number is not the same on your Contact Page as on your GMB listing. Why is this? It should be cleaned up.

3. On the GMB listing, you have listed no hours, have no photos, have only 1 review from a first-time reviewer, are not using Google Posts, or G Q&A. Your listing for this client is pretty empty and can definitely be improved.

4. You have what I'm guessing is a practitioner listing for a Jeffery G. Hessing. It also features some NAP discrepancies you should check out.

5. The fact that you have no Knowledge Panel appearing in the organic SERPs when I search for the brand "Orthopedic Associates Boise Idaho" leads me to believe that Google just doesn't feel it knows much about the business. So, I'd fully utilize all of the GMB features and put a review acquisition campaign in place to help this business start having more information for Google to dive into.

6. When I do non-branded search for just "orthopedist boise idaho" you are not being filtered out by Possum, which is good news. You are ranking in the 11th spot and likely need to invest in both local and organic SEO to start moving up the rankings.

7. On August 1st, there was a Google algorithm update released. Some have called it the "medic update", though Gary Illyes of Google says it didn't specifically target health-related sites. Have you read up on this? If the date your client's rankings dropped is around August 1st, it would be important to read everything you can about this update to see if your client appears to have been impacted by it. Dr. Pete wrote a good post here on Moz: https://moz.com/blog/googles-august-1st-core-update-week-1

8. Firing up Moz Check listing, it looks like there is a lot of work to be done with your citation completeness, and, of more concern, look at the duplicates tab. https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMk9ydGhvcGFlZGljJTI1MjBBc3NvY2lhdGVzJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyODM3MDQlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjJPcnRob3BhZWRpYyUyNTIwQXNzb2NpYXRlcyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjg4NTQlMjUyMEVtZXJhbGQlMjUyMFN0JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyODM3MDQlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjIyMDgzNzgyODY4JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIydXMlMjUyMiUyNTVE You have a serious issue going on with duplicate Google listings both for the practice and for Dr. Hessing. Each of these must be appropriately addressed. This article may help you: https://moz.com/blog/delete-gmb-listing The presence of claimed duplicate listings is a violation of Google's guidelines, and even if they are unclaimed, they could certainly be impacting your ability to rank as this client as you'd like to.

So, those are some issues I'm seeing at a glance. I recommend that you investigate all this, do a complete competitive audit for this client, and perhaps, hire a Local SEO to consult with your agency to help get basic local search marketing going for them. There are quite a few issues going on here that could directly or indirectly explain your client not ranking very well. Hope this helps and good luck!