I know there most of the focus over the past week or so in the SEO community is around the big core algorithm update at this point seems to be slowing down. But there is a large number of SEOs who focus on local SEO saying with this update, some of the local rankings have seemed to significantly fluctuation as well. We know, at least typically, the local ranking and core search rankings are separate - so to see both happen around the same day may be unusual. This local update may have started July 30th through August 1st, when the core update was on August 1st.
Joy Hawkins, a super detailed local SEO, said in the Local Search Forums and Twitter that she is also seeing fluctuations with the local search rankings, not just web core search. She said:
A huge influx in local rankings due to filter changes. We had a consultation recently with an attorney who experienced a huge change in his ranking. Organic went up but local went down as a result of this update. As I've been preaching lately - the 2 algorithms work differently. This update appears to have impacted both.Here's a good graph that outlines that well. For this keyword, the attorney increased in organic and decreased in local after this update.
Here is her tweet:
Seeing a ton of organic AND local ranking changes as a result of this big algorithm update. I'm still looking through cases but I'm seeing a large amount of movement and will try and update this thread with findings: https://t.co/pEXZTnHxxe
— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) August 3, 2018
She also noticed some spam showing up in the local pack in search:
She is not the only one, someone else in the forum thread said:
In particular, respected doctor sites were hit hard in both search and local maps.An incomprehensible and offensive move as Google now thinks that doctors should not rank #1 for their name and are not allowed to write about things in their area of practice.
Local search rankings is hard because it is so easy to get new listings in Google Maps that the results can fluctuate a lot when new listings show up.
In any event, have you seen any local search changes around the same time of this Wednesday algorithm update?
Forum discussion at Twitter and Local Search Forums.
