Service Area Based GMB Profiles and the New Google Update

With the new Google September 2022 Broad Core Update rolling out over the next 2 weeks there has already been an immediate impact for some Google My Business profiles.

Specifically, Service Area based GMB profiles are quite literally disappearing off of the ranking. When a heat map via LocalViking  was used to look at their reach they turned up completely red. In other words, some profiles simply were removed from existence as far as Google was concerned.

While the pages affected were few in number (about 4 out of 100) there were specific details that each profile shared in common:

• They were a Service Area based business
• They either had a residential address attached to the profile or were showing no address at all
• They may have previously had a virtual office listed as their address

It is worth mentioning that some GMB profiles we manage that also had no shown address were not affected. However, not a single business that had listed a commercial address was affected by this update and that is currently thought to be the biggest factor. 

How We Fixed It

While the update is still being rolled out and things have not had a chance to completely settle, the one thing our company could do to resolve the issue was to add the last known verified address back onto the profile. This immediately made the GMB start ranking again. We have not tested whether removing said address will reverse this fix but it is a clear indication that removing your address after this Google update may not be feasible. 

Historically, Google has been less likely to verify non-commercial and virtual addresses so this may come as less of a shock. As of right now there are no other fixes to this and we are encouraging businesses with a Service Area to use a commercial address in order to avoid being removed from ranking.