Activated in Google Places but not listed

verified and active but does not show on search

[majjk]

I entered the information of my business nearly a week ago, had it verified with the PIN and is being displayed on the dashboard as being "active"... but my business never show up when doing local searches. Google claim it may take up to 24 hours, but those 24 hours are long gone. How long do I have to wait? Could something be wrong even though it is displayed as active? The only thing I possibly can think of is that it says that "Your business info" is 83% complete. But that I believe is because I haven't added certain non-required things such as photos and videos. Ideas?

[AnkitMaheshwari]

have you tried searching your business with the name along with location (the one mentioned while listing)?

[majjk]

ok this is interesting... up until now I have only done searches like this:

postcode keyword phrase
and then it didn't show up (but did include businesses that were as far away as 10 miles away)

but your reply made me try the following:

postcode "business name"
and now it comes up!

Why? I was under the illusion that Google Places would list the nearest ones, so why am I not listed for my keyword? In any case, I am ranked in the top10 in Google nationally for this keyword phrase, so I can see no reason why I should be excluded locally, even if they add some kind of relevance score to the mix.

What is going on here?

[anallawalla]

Are you expecting to rank in the 7-pack within Google Search, or on any page within Google Maps? Ranking in the 7-pack is unpredictable and not tied to how well you rank in the organic SERPs. Browse some old posts here for such discussions. For each "tip" I can probably show a site that either didn't rank after doing all the recommended things, or a site that ranks in spite of not doing the recommended things. At best, follow all the tips, as it won't hurt to do so.

[majjk]

Are you expecting to rank in the 7-pack within Google Search, or on any page within Google Maps?

Sorry, but I don't quite understand the question. I somehow expected to rank well for my number one keyword in the area where I am located. But I am not. I just checked the first 100 results for my postcode, and I am not there.

I am going to read up more on this, but meanwhile I will be rather confused... as already mentioned, I am in the top10 nationally (regular Google search, not maps), but not in the top100 in my local area (but they do include results that are up to 10-15 miles away for the top100!)

[Terabytes]

I just went thru this issue while moving to a new state/address. I live in a small rural area and it's not too difficult to get on top of the local results.

However, when I updated my local listings with my new info, I did not show "anywhere", unless I searched by business name.

I've changed addresses a few times in the last couple years, and never had an issue getting back on top of local search listings (or maps).

After about 2 weeks of waiting, I sort of figured there was an issue or something.

I modified the listing slightly in order to get G to take an update back into the local listings, less than 24 hours later there I was back on top again.

So I'm going to suggest that you make some small changes, even if you re-enter your same information again in order to submit a "change" in your listing and see if your issue was just small snafu with G.

just wanted to add that I'm not 100% complete either, I don't think G would slam you for not putting videos on your listing...

Best of luck!
Tera

[majjk]

Hooray, I'm being displayed now (1st in my area). I didn't change anything lately, so maybe it simply is a case of it taking a lot longer than those 24h google mentions...

[spadilla]

One other thing that can help you to rank in the 7 pack is to go to places like Yelp and Insiderpages and claim / add a listing. Make sure you are in your main categories on these sites as well. It appears that this sends relevance signals to Google and can help push your ranking up. I've also noticed that those with reviews can break a tie for ranking position.

[anallawalla]

Sorry, but I don't quite understand the question. I somehow expected to rank well for my number one keyword in the area where I am located. But I am not. I just checked the first 100 results for my postcode, and I am not there.

This is why I am confused as well. "100 results" suggests that the problem is about ranking in the regular Google Search SERPs, since the 7-pack with a little map in it has no more than 10 entries (I haven't seen 10 in a while but some are seeing those).

So I think you are not seeing yourself with you type "<keyword> 1234"

I am going to read up more on this, but meanwhile I will be rather confused... as already mentioned, I am in the top10 nationally (regular Google search, not maps), but not in the top100 in my local area (but they do include results that are up to 10-15 miles away for the top100!)

OK, you were indeed talking about the regular organic search results and were saying that you still rank for "<keyword>" or "<keyword> <country name>" but not for "<keyword> <postcode>" or "<keyword> <a place name within 15 miles>".

This is a factor of the words that appear on your page. Are those nearby places mentioned on your site? What happens if you search for the exact suburb in the search term?

(Glad to see you are ranking now, but if you don't mind, what was/wasn't on your pages by way of locality names?)