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Is Your Google My Business Listing Getting Filtered?
This article is part 1 of 9 from my LocalU presentation from March 2020. If you missed the event, the videos are available for purchase here.
TL;DR
• The local filter became more noticeable after Google’s Possum update and filters out similar or duplicate listings.
• Listings can be filtered based on business name, URL, address, or close proximity to competitors.
• Filtered listings may disappear from the Local Finder or only appear when zooming in on the map.
• In some cases, filtering suppresses rankings rather than fully removing a listing.
• Google typically shows the listing with the strongest authority for each specific keyword.
The local filter has existed for a long time but became much more obvious after the Possum algorithm update in 2016. The local filter is kind of like the organic filter in the sense that it filters things it considers to be similar or duplicates. The local filter will filter out listings based on the following information:
- URL & business name. If you have multiple locations for the same business, Google will often show the one with the highest relevance and filter others. For example, this lawyer in Houston decided to open a new office in Katy, TX. Because his Houston office has so much prominence & relevance, it continues to rank in Katy for many terms and filter out his newer office (that has a lot less authority). In this example, you’ll see that Google is showing me his office that is 26 miles away instead of the one down the street.
- Address & Proximity. In this example, there are a bunch of personal injury lawyers using the same virtual office address. In this image, the ones in red are all filtered.
How can you Tell a Listing was Filtered?
In some cases, the filter causes listings to be completely removed from the Local Finder results unless you zoom in.
To see all the listings that got filtered, pull up the Local Finder for a given query and scroll on your mouse very slightly to zoom in on the map once. You should see a bunch of listings appear in the list that weren’t there before. It helps if you have the 2 windows side-by-side so you can compare the 2 views and see who appeared that wasn’t there before.
Part of how I was able to spot these changes in the SERPs was due to utilizing Bright Local’s ranking tracker and setting my reports to scan daily and take screenshots of the SERPs. Comparing the screenshots day-by-day allowed me to see and confirm that these listings rarely appeared together but would sometimes switch out.
In other cases, the filter causes the ranking of a listing to be suppressed but not completely removed. This behavior is closely aligned with what many SEOs now refer to as the Google diversity update, where Google intentionally limits how many similar businesses appear together in local search results to avoid redundancy. Essentially, if your listing is too similar (based on criteria above) to a listing that outranks you, it will cause your listing to rank much lower because Google is trying to “diversify” the search results. We see this all the time with lawyer listings. We had one case where a lawyer’s listing dropped from 1 to 6 due to being filtered by another attorney in his building (different floor) and then went back up to the first position later once his relevance got stronger. We have done testing on this and in one case saw a listing that was ranking 15+ move up to the number two position within hours after getting the listing removed that was causing it to be filtered.
How Does it Decide Who Avoids the Filter?
The listing that has the most ranking authority for that particular keyword is the one that will rank. For example, one attorney ranks for “personal injury attorney palmdale” but a different attorney ranks for “auto accident attorney palmdale” (both are using the same address). Because a listing is filtered for one keyword does not mean that it will be filtered for other keywords.
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Great info, and I see it as one more datapoint showing how a few programmers at Google can determine the success of one attorney over another in this shared-address scenario.
Really interesting find – thanks for explaining it Joy 🙂
This happened to my business because we were in such close proximity to a business that has a similar name. That was a really scary time falling off the map pack entirely! We moved our pin a bit and requested there pin to be moved as well and we were back in!
Can you please tell me how you move the pin without changing the real physical address? I am having this issue
Great info, and I see it as one more datapoint showing how a few programmers at Google can determine the success of one attorney over another in this shared-address scenario.
Really interesting find – thanks for explaining it Joy 🙂
This happened to my business because we were in such close proximity to a business that has a similar name. That was a really scary time falling off the map pack entirely! We moved our pin a bit and requested there pin to be moved as well and we were back in!
Can you please tell me how you move the pin without changing the real physical address? I am having this issue
You simply edit the address pin location in the dashboard. We typically don’t use that tactic anymore though.
Thanks Colan. May I ask what is the reason you don’t move the pin anymore? Is moving the real location only option? I have such a hard time now. No one can see my business except when you zoom into the map. It is still rank in another keyword but not the keyword that I have customers in the past.
Hi Colan, was also thinking about moving my pin to the opposite end of a large building to avoid filtering with another similar business, do you think this has a chance of working?
Hi Jim, moving the pin works in most cases. Keep in mind that Google might move it back at some point and you want to avoid creating a poor customer experience so move it wisely 🙂
With Google doing it this way it kind of means there can’t be more that one of the same business in the same office building. Wondering if the listing that does show up was the first one to show up or the most optimized listing?
It’s not necessarily the first one but I have found that age is a ranking factor so it would likely give them a slight advantage. Ultimately though it’s decided based on relevance so things like the business name, website content, links, reviews etc.
With Google doing it this way it kind of means there can’t be more that one of the same business in the same office building. Wondering if the listing that does show up was the first one to show up or the most optimized listing?
It’s not necessarily the first one but I have found that age is a ranking factor so it would likely give them a slight advantage. Ultimately though it’s decided based on relevance so things like the business name, website content, links, reviews etc.
Isn’t “Car Accident Lawyer – |AccidentLawyer-Palmdale” a classic case of Map Spam?
Apparently so as I just entered the same query “personal injury attorney in Palmdale, CA” and they’re gone. 🙂
Isn’t “Car Accident Lawyer – |AccidentLawyer-Palmdale” a classic case of Map Spam?
Apparently so as I just entered the same query “personal injury attorney in Palmdale, CA” and they’re gone. 🙂
It probably was, Jim!
Hi Joy, it’s interesting that you too found that the proximity of a new business location didn’t show up in your results, and good old ranking authority prevailed in your test. I too have experienced similar results. One of my clients, a doctor, with 3 clinics added a 4th location, and it took about 2 months for that location to start showing up on Google Maps and for various queries.
Hi. Did your client have to do anything or just waited? I am having similar issue after changing my address
We’ve had similar scenarios and sometimes you just need to let some time pass.
Ah I see. 2 people
in another facebook group just mentioned that it took them 8 weeks to be sorted.
Hi Colan Nielsen,
I did a dublicate GBP within same google account, same business number, same address and same website date, as you expected my long term listing Faraday Engineering Limited suspended. (Dublicate was faraday electricians).
I deleted completely duplicate listing (faraday electricians) including website, google listing, google search console…
And
google reinsted original listing. Since than google map is filtering Faraday Engineering Limited.
It shows 30 miles away from my address
What do you recommend to brake this filtering, It does not show even I put “electrician + my post code”
when I type exact name “Faraday Engineering Limited”. It shows in google map
What do you suggest to remove Google Local Maps filtering on faraday engineering limited?
Thanks
Huseyin
Faraday Engineering Limited
http://www.faradayengineering.co.uk
Tel 07544800166
Hi Joy, it’s interesting that you too found that the proximity of a new business location didn’t show up in your results, and good old ranking authority prevailed in your test. I too have experienced similar results. One of my clients, a doctor, with 3 clinics added a 4th location, and it took about 2 months for that location to start showing up on Google Maps and for various queries.
Hi. Did your client have to do anything or just waited? I am having similar issue after changing my address
We’ve had similar scenarios and sometimes you just need to let some time pass.
Ah I see. 2 people
in another facebook group just mentioned that it took them 8 weeks to be sorted.
Hi Colan Nielsen,
I did a dublicate GBP within same google account, same business number, same address and same website date, as you expected my long term listing Faraday Engineering Limited suspended. (Dublicate was faraday electricians).
I deleted completely duplicate listing (faraday electricians) including website, google listing, google search console…
And
google reinsted original listing. Since than google map is filtering Faraday Engineering Limited.
It shows 30 miles away from my address
What do you recommend to brake this filtering, It does not show even I put “electrician + my post code”
when I type exact name “Faraday Engineering Limited”. It shows in google map
What do you suggest to remove Google Local Maps filtering on faraday engineering limited?
Thanks
Huseyin
Faraday Engineering Limited
http://www.faradayengineering.co.uk
Tel 07544800166
Hi Huseyin, this requires a deeper dive. I would post asking for help at the Local Search Forum that I told you about. Or, I would consider hiring someone to help you figure this out.
This tip about local seo it’s amazing! It seems to me that it could easily be put into practice.
This tip about local seo it’s amazing! It seems to me that it could easily be put into practice.
Hi David, I’m glad you found it useful!
You simply edit the address pin location in the dashboard. We typically don’t use that tactic anymore though.
Hi Colan, was also thinking about moving my pin to the opposite end of a large building to avoid filtering with another similar business, do you think this has a chance of working?
Hi Jim, moving the pin works in most cases. Keep in mind that Google might move it back at some point and you want to avoid creating a poor customer experience so move it wisely 🙂
Thanks Colan. May I ask what is the reason you don’t move the pin anymore? Is moving the real location only option? I have such a hard time now. No one can see my business except when you zoom into the map. It is still rank in another keyword but not the keyword that I have customers in the past.
Hi David, I’m glad you found it useful!
It probably was, Jim!
Hi
Would appreciate your assistance in any way or form.
My accommodation business was until recently ranking in top 3 positions on Google search, when using key words ‘Strandfontein Accommodation’
It seems that by business has been filtered as my account is showing no irregularities, but I am now no where to be found in the search results.
Is there anything I can do?
Hi Alan,
Can you share the details in a post over at the Local Search Forum?
https://localsearchforum.com/
Hey Alan,
It’s really hard to offer any type of advice when it comes to ranking without investigating thoroughly. If it’s in your budget, you might want to look at hiring an SEO company in your area to do an audit.
Hi
Would appreciate your assistance in any way or form.
My accommodation business was until recently ranking in top 3 positions on Google search, when using key words ‘Strandfontein Accommodation’
It seems that by business has been filtered as my account is showing no irregularities, but I am now no where to be found in the search results.
Is there anything I can do?
Hi Alan,
Can you share the details in a post over at the Local Search Forum?
https://localsearchforum.com/
Hey Alan,
It’s really hard to offer any type of advice when it comes to ranking without investigating thoroughly. If it’s in your budget, you might want to look at hiring an SEO company in your area to do an audit.
Hi Huseyin, this requires a deeper dive. I would post asking for help at the Local Search Forum that I told you about. Or, I would consider hiring someone to help you figure this out.
I faced the same situation with one of our client for dentist near me keyword. However it started appearing after few week. Still i could not figure out what did work🤔.
What could be the solution, put your 2 cents
There is a big algorithm update happening right now. I find algo updates often change up who is filtered and who is not. So while I would get excited if this was my client, I’d also be cautious because it could easily flip back in the future.
I faced the same situation with one of our client for dentist near me keyword. However it started appearing after few week. Still i could not figure out what did work🤔.
What could be the solution, put your 2 cents
There is a big algorithm update happening right now. I find algo updates often change up who is filtered and who is not. So while I would get excited if this was my client, I’d also be cautious because it could easily flip back in the future.