This Is Why The Google My Business Description Is Not A Ranking Factor

There was a heap of debate on Twitter between SEO experts and webmasters about an update in the help centre, which suggested the description field in Google My Business is going to help you rank better.

There are several tests done on this, in addition to numerous others, and can easily say that the description field does not have any adverse effect on ranking in the 3-pack. If Google made it that very easy to rank in search engine results pages, the results will be useless, which could be both terrible for Google and users.

Google has recently updated the document as it was misleading. As of Thursday morning, parts of it has already been eliminated.

Originally, the document showed this:

However, the top section has now been eliminated. The part which was removed was:

“Think about the words customers would type to find your business, and make sure that your listing actually includes those keywords within it.”

As of today, the new text reads:

This still looks misleading though. Hopefully, Google is going to continue to alter it and ensure it is much clearer that shoving a lot of keyword phrases into your business description isn't the secret to ranking better in Google.

What We Know About The Confirmation From Google That There Is No Core Update

There are already numerous discussions about search engine results movements. Others have declared a February 2020 update. However, this is not true.

Those who experienced ranking changes are now stating that the results of the fluctuations have now reverted. And Google recently announced that no update was rolled out.

Danny Sullivan talks about the February 2020 update reports

Someone requested for a hint on what the rumoured update is focused on.

In response, Danny Sullivan said that Google is updated on a regular basis and provided a link to a tweet from 2019 which clarified the big difference between a core algorithm update and a daily update.

This is Danny's response:

This is the 2019 tweet that Danny sent, which points out the difference:

Core Algorithm Update

A core algorithm upgrade is a significant event in which substantial changes are made to Google's algorithm. This may pertain to additions to the algorithm, which is typically how Google understand queries from users and the words or content on a web page.

Daily Update

Whatever fluctuation was experienced was because of the daily updates which occur at all times. Google performs posts on their algorithm every day. For example,

Usual Indicators of an Update

Ordinarily, there are lots of discussions on social media during major updates. For instance, one will see an uptick in social networking posts clustering in a certain niche market if that area is hit hard by an update. However, such an activity is nowhere to be seen.

The No Update Update

Without question, people did experience search results movement, but those have been a part of the updates that occur at Google each day of each week, in each month, for the entire year.

Here's Danny Sullivan's explanation:

What to do in case of a ranking drop?

Wait

Wait for a while to determine if the modifications are reverted. It is not uncommon for Google to implement a change and then roll it back a bit as it gets feedback.

Understand Relevance

Relevance is often the focus of updates. Many publishers check their websites with this question in mind:

"What did I do wrong?"

When rankings are lost because of relevance problems, the much better question to ask is:

"What did my competitor do right?"

When Google says that there’s "nothing to fix", it implies that the typical issues which SEO professionals and publishers think need fixing, like low-quality links, poor content and so on, those are not the explanation why a website lost rankings and why there's absolutely nothing to fix.

For instance, if the query is "ice cream" and your website about "how to make ice cream" lost positions, it might be because Google is giving preference to web pages that review ice cream brands or websites that show where you can purchase ice cream. Put simply, your post isn't relevant.

How does that happen? Usually, that happens when Google presents a better method to address what users mean when they create a search query.

Possible Explanations?

Daily Updates

The best explanation of what happened is it's among many posts that occur each week. This may be a mix of small modifications that together led to a change in how search results are shown. That is not really a core algorithm update.

Google Search Console Update

Maybe not coincidentally, Google updated its Google Search Console (GSC). The update was sending notifications to publishers if they have broken feedback structured data that needed fixing. The promotion on the top spot means that another person may have lost traffic.

So it is possible that at least some of the SERP fluctuation was because of changes publishers have been making to their websites.

Update to News

Around 9th and 10th February 2020, Google updated something that’s associated with the discover feed. This resulted in displaying web pages from offensive websites, which had earlier been excluded by the algorithms. Could this change in the discover feed lead to much fewer visitors to other websites? Possible.

Takeaway

The essential thing to bear in mind is there's no significant Google update. The sky is not dropping. It is simply the regular fluctuations that occur every day.

The claims that there was an update from SEO professionals, webmasters, and other sectors have been unfortunately wrong.

All details of this post came from https://searchengineland.com/no-the-google-my-business-description-does-not-impact-ranking-329176 and https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-confirms-no-core-algorithm-update/348736/. Click the links for more information.

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