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Vicinity Update Issues?

by Michael Roberts
2 replies
Hey all, so one of my clients got hit with a suspension and immediate reinstatement on GMB around the time of the Vicinity Update. Now their main location is barely showing up (their sister company now shows up for the main branded name). Some of their info got stripped when this happened as well. As far as I can tell, best course of action is to rebuild any/all missing information and follow best practices but they would like us to find other answers that would get them back to their prior visibility. Any input or suggestions anyone can give to speed things along? Thanks.
#issues #update #vicinity
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    Originally Posted by Michael Roberts View Post

    Hey all, so one of my clients got hit with a suspension and immediate reinstatement on GMB around the time of the Vicinity Update. Now their main location is barely showing up (their sister company now shows up for the main branded name). Some of their info got stripped when this happened as well. As far as I can tell, best course of action is to rebuild any/all missing information and follow best practices but they would like us to find other answers that would get them back to their prior visibility. Any input or suggestions anyone can give to speed things along? Thanks.
    Correct the information / fill in the missing gaps to start with. Get on Google Maps and add photos, a couple a day for a week or so, and then get the client in the habit of doing so at leadt once a week. ADD Citations - and specifically I would be looking for local based citations. If you are not aware of any then at the very least look here: ( https://www.brightlocal.com/resource...hoCyeIQAvD_BwE ) and add some of these.

    Get your client into the habit of responding to Google reviews GOOD and BAD, and when I mean in the habit, as in EVERY LAST ONE.
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  • Profile picture of the author max5ty
    I'm no expert on Google Business Profiles (old GMB), but I have been actively learning more about it because in my opinion, and most of those that do local SEO (which I don't actively do), GBP is more important right now than a website. Although a website helps push the listing.

    I do know the update ended December 8th and a lot of the businesses that were keyword stuffing were penalized by Google. It was always against Google's policies, but it was being widely done.

    Keyword stuffing (as you probably know) is when a business was adding keywords to their business name...or had someone promising to rank them higher adding keywords. I.E., if you have a pet shop in Columbus named "Pets R Us" and you add "Columbus", etc. You are not allowed to add anything to your business name that is not on your actual signage as far as your legal name. Google actively penalized those businesses that were trying to rank higher with keyword stuffing.

    GBP became even more of a local area search. If you google a business it will bring up those that are nearest you. If you're in another part of town and do the same search...you may get different results. There are ways to overcome that, but that's another subject that would take longer to discuss and wouldn't add to the OP.

    Also, there was/is a lot of confusion on what exactly happened besides the penalty for keyword stuffing...

    this post verifies that:

    https://www.seroundtable.com/google-...ate-32562.html
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