September has been a busy month for SEOs and site owners with the Google updates, like the helpful content update that is still rolling out and will take two weeks to roll out fully, and now seems to be a possible local search ranking update on Sep 7.
What Are People Saying?
SEOs also confirmed the movement in the search results at the Local Search Forum. On Sep 7, many service area businesses were concerned about their fluctuations in ranking for local search results.
Joy Hawkins gave her insight into the ranking drops for SABs.
Seeing directions icons on Google Maps for service area businesses (SABs) that shouldn't have them – and they don't work. Maybe this is related to all the insane fluctuations we're seeing for SABs. Something is broken… pic.twitter.com/iJq66XGTV4
— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) September 14, 2022
What’s Next – Dealing With This Update
Google has not officially announced the local search ranking update and has also not commented on anything related to the update. There are no official guidelines related to the update.
And if your site is facing a drop in ranking in the local search results, it is suggested to take a look if your website’s organic ranking dropped as well or if it’s just the local pack rankings. If your local rankings are seeing negative results with this local update, you can refer to our Local SEO guide to identify opportunities for improvement.
