Manipulating Google map listing

Hi all, Need a bit of help understanding a weird thing that I am competing with.

I have a website that ranks well under the a location based search.

An example would be "florist melbourne"

Historically we have done very well as we rank well on the map search.
Somehow a competitor has been able to achieve a result that the search no longer shows the map and just shows their Google plus business listing instead.

Can anyone shed light as to how this was achieved and any advice to combat it?

Cheers and thanks

First of all remove your keyword. Never post real keywords or domains here.. you attract people to compete with you!

RuthSam said:

First of all remove your keyword. Never post real keywords or domains here.. you attract people to compete with you!

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Changed it - cheers

Have you done Business Listing?If yes then make your labels and tags more broad.

Google+ is well on its way to be extremely influential in SEO rankings, its now second behind facebook and is connected to YouTube accounts which adds to their influence, you should DEFF have a G+ page for your business synced with your website and make sure the business page is 100% filled out, pictures added and updated at least every other day with some content if not your going to loose out more and more as they update. They used to have a G+ addition to where you could add your personal account as an "Author" on your website so when you make a post on your site being linked to your G+ account shoots it up the rankings, I think they got rid of this feature though but just an example of how G+ will be more and more relevant to Google SEO. One of the main companies I work for we rank 1st in Local on google in a pretty competitive field in a unique geographical area and found this due to fully completed, updated social media accounts, having your address/url/name/etc all linked across fb/g+/linkedin/etc plus good on-site SEO you will shoot up in local rankings.

No issues with all the above. Have an active G+ account, very active with lots of reviews. I may not be all that clear. Probably because I removed the specifics above. As an example though..

Say I run Bob's flowers in Melbourne. A competitor is Tim's Flowers. We are close to each other geographically.
When someone searches for "Flowers Melbourne" it used to come up with all the florists and the google reviews.

As of a few days ago - it thinks my competitor is actually called "Flowers Melbourne" and instead of the map with the listings - just comes up with their G+ profile as though the search was for them only. It is as though they have convinced google that "flowers Melbourne" is their business name and as a result shows them exclusively rather than the map listing.

That make more sense?

Cheers!

RuthSam said:

First of all remove your keyword. Never post real keywords or domains here.. you attract people to compete with you!

Click to expand...

Very good and smart advice better listen to Sam!

Regards,

Finn

Finn said:

Very good and smart advice better listen to Sam!

Regards,

Finn

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Have certainly done that - the example above is not our actual one. Purely an example of a similar hypothetical scenario.

The Florist industry in Melbourne (au) is very competitive, i have ranked a few businesses & it is was not easy.

Be sure to have all of your directory listings consistent (NAP) & get as many reviews as possible!

I noticed this searching a local house painting term before. The first time i saw it, it was just the one business like you said. Then I searched it a couple days later or something and it was the snack pack. But idk how or why this happens, only that it changed back the next time.

Mikaelo said:

The Florist industry in Melbourne (au) is very competitive, i have ranked a few businesses & it is was not easy.

Be sure to have all of your directory listings consistent (NAP) & get as many reviews as possible!

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No - not actually looking at that industry. Took the advice above and changed the search term

My own listing on Google Maps has been plagued with the same issue as OP's.
It would be great if anyone can provide any real insight into how and why this kind of a thing happened.