What Is Google Up To Now?!
Google has so much going on right now that it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up, but since you and 10,000+ other top marketers rely on us to keep up weekly, we put on another pot of coffee and assembled a list of their six upcoming and recent changes plus what we think it means for local SEO, local businesses, and you.
Google is showing "short videos" in search results. Google started showing some users a "short videos" tab, highlighting short videos about the topic the user searched for. This is in addition to their existing "videos" tab. This shows that Google really wants to get into the social media game, and you should help them by taking short videos of things in your business and uploading them to your Google Business Profile media section. We say this often, but if you help Google do what they want, they'll help you in return.
Google's algo update is taking significantly longer to roll out than usual. We've seen Google Business Profile rankings shoot up and down over and over again these past few weeks. Our advice here is to just wait it out. After Google pushes a new update, it takes some time, usually weeks, for the dust to settle and their new rankings to take hold. Until then, they need to test their systems to make sure they didn't make a mistake.
Google is contemplating charging users for AI-generated search results. AI-generated results will likely affect local businesses less than e-commerce brands and info sites, which have already seen significant drops in web visits since Google implemented this inside Google search. It's interesting to see Google try to charge for the AI-generated summaries, but I suppose they have to since they won't earn any ad revenue from it.
Google removed Google Business Profile (Snack Pack) results from some results types. Google recently started showing the map pack lower in search results for search phrases that are less clear about someone looking for a local business. For example, the search phrase "Invisalign" used to show the map pack, but now it doesn't appear at all since Google isn't sure if the searcher wants to buy the product Invisalign or they want to find a local dentist that can install it. Last week, the map pack appeared ¾ down the page for this term. As we said earlier, we must wait to see where things land.
Google cracked down on "AI content" (not really). There was a lot of misinformation about this going around, but let's make it clear. Google did not crack down on AI content; they cracked down on people using AI to create hundreds or thousands of near-duplicate pages on their website in an attempt to dominate the search results. Even then, Google didn't do a great job cracking down on it. It is widely known now that no AI detectors can keep up with AI advancements and that it is impossible to reliably identify AI-generated content. Even OpenAI has admitted this. You can use AI for marketing, but you cannot use it to make hundreds of web pages that all say the same thing.
Google is testing many new layouts for Google Business Profiles. In the past week alone, we've seen four different Google Business Profile layouts. Each layout included different information in different places, including how/if they showed phone numbers, services, social links, and more. If you're looking at your profile saying, "Hey, where did my phone number go?!" don't worry - it's just Google testing new layouts, and there's nothing you can do about it. There are two different types of layout tests. The first is where only you see all profiles differently. The second is where certain profiles appear differently for everyone who sees them.
Something else you should know about
We'll end this week with an update about our new fully automated GBP optimization platform, Paige. It's coming along nicely, and we'll be letting in more beta users next week. If you haven't looked into this yet, you'll want to ASAP and secure your spot on the waitlist (2,000+ businesses already have!) Watch the Sneak Peek video below. If you like and comment on the video you'll get priority access!
ProfilePro tip of the week:
Take 3 short videos (up to 15 seconds) of your business and upload them to the media section of your Google Business Profile.
Wondering how well your Google Business Profile ranks on Google Maps for different keywords? We built a free local ranking audit tool you can use to quickly find out!
Check out our guide on every possible ranking strategy for Google Business Profiles!
Google Updates You Should Know About
Google updates their algos regularly, and we check and then digest them for you. Here are the latest ones local marketers should know about:
You can find details on all algo updates here.