August 22, 2017 Google has a Haw swoop out and made a swift in Local searches. The Hawk update was only direct at local services so you won’t see this update for searches with out local intent. We are still learning about the update and gathering information but this is what we know so far.
There is a filter that Google deployed to make sure one company doesn’t monopolize the entire first page of the SERPS. The filter was changed and updated by a Google update called Possum (yes, they love all things animal!) and instead of only filtering out a listing that shares the same phone number Google started filtering locations that were located next to each other. I am sure at the time in the think tank this seemed like a great idea and Google made the filtering changes. But we all quickly learned that if a business was located next to another business or in the same building as the other business and the two businesses were in the same industry one of the businesses would be filtered out.
There are many businesses in the same industry that are located in the same building or next to the same type of business. This new filter began to cause a lot of problems and quickly everyone realized this filter wasn’t the best idea after all. Google had the Hawk swoop in and change the filtering to make it a little less problematic. If you are close to another company that is in your same industry you should not be filtered out any more. But if you are located in the same building you are still going to continue to have the filtering problem. While this change helps with some of the issues there are still problems if you are located 40 to 50 feet away from a competitor. Think about how many hotels we see packed tightly next to each other!
With continued feedback Google will continue to make adjustments and your SEO Expert will continue to work on any issues you may have with any of the Google updates.
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