Significant "Average Position" dips in Search Console each time I post on Google My Business

[PhotoMattJames]

Hi everyone,

Several weeks ago I noticed that each Wednesday my site's Average Position in Search Console dipped significantly.

Immediately I identified that this was the day my colleague published and back-linked a blog post, and so  we spent the next few weeks testing and monitoring everything we did.

We discovered that it was ONLY when we created a Google My Business post that the Average Position dipped, and on the 1st July we tested it one more time. The results were the same (please see attached image).

I am 100% confident that Google My Business is the cause of the issue, but can't identify why. The image I upload belongs to me, the text isn't spammy or stuffed with keywords, the Learn More links to my own website, and I never receive any warnings from Google about the content.

I would love to hear the community's thoughts on this and how I can stop the issue from continuing. I should note, that my Google My Business insights are generally positive i.e. no dips in search results etc.

My URL is https://www.photographybymatthewjames.com/

Thanks in advance

Matthew

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[ClaytonJ]

Hi

On search console - have you limited that to a country?  Or is that "countryless"".   As if countryless - not unusal.

Can you clarify? Ideally, limit to the country you are targetting.

Also on top of the overall position dips - is there any corresponding dips for major customer queries you are tracking?

Regards

[PhotoMattJames]

Hi, and thanks for the fast response.

Yes, I have specifically been targetting Denmark for the past 3-4 years (I set this up in the old Webmaster Tools and it still appears the same). So in short, I am targetting one country.

As for Queries – yes, there are significant drops for certain customer queries.  The column on the left with the highest number shows the average page rank on the day I posted on Google My Business, vs. the day before I posted. i.e. event photographer dipped from 0 average page ranking to 196

Does this make things clearer in any way?

| event photographer | 196 | 0 | 196 |
| event photography | 193 | 0 | 193 |
| sports photographer | 188.3 | 0 | 188.3 |
| sports photography | 182 | 0 | 182 |
| james harrison | 101 | 0 | 101 |
| photoshoot københavn | 98 | 0 | 98 |
| copenhagen photos | 97 | 0 | 97 |
| danish courses in copenhagen | 96 | 0 | 96 |
| dhl stafet københavn | 92 | 0 | 92 |
| cph business | 91.5 | 0 | 91.5 |

[ClaytonJ]

Apologies my question was unclear - when you extracted your position data from search console.  Did you limit it to Denmark?  There is navigation that lets you limit to the country.  Can you let me know if we are working from that data set on positional changes?

Zero or 0 is worse than 196.  0 means your not ranking at all, whereas 196 means that is where you are ranking position 196.

They are very low rankings, is the site optimised from a title tag, meta description, H1 perspective?

Check out the URL structure component,

https://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors

Also see excerpt below:

An Ideally Optimized Web Page

An ideal web page should do all of the following:

• Be hyper-relevant to a specific topic (usually a product or single object)
  • Include subject in title tag
  • Include subject in URL
  • Include subject in image alt text
  • Specify subject several times throughout text content
• Provide unique content about a given subject
• Link back to its category page
• Link back to its subcategory page (If applicable)
• Link back to its homepage (normally accomplished with an image link showing the website logo on the top left of a page)

Hope that helps.

[PhotoMattJames]

Thanks again.

No, the country filter wasn't set, so it was showing an average position for all countries.

The site is optimised as best as possible as far as I am aware.

[ClaytonJ]

Ta, but do you get the big dip now when Denmark is applied?

[PhotoMattJames]

Actually, no. Those big dips each Wednesday don't appear when I select Denmark. So I guess this makes much more sense if I am only targetting a local market such as Denmark.

Thanks for making this clear...

[ClaytonJ]

No worries, you often get the weekly dips when global - no idea why. However, when adding country it all flattens out.  If the question is answered or happy please mark it accordingly.  Hope that helps.