We already know that the address you used to verify your Google My Business listing is important when ranking within your selected services areas.
You monitor your local positions, but do you monitor changes made in Google Maps?
This story begins back in July 2019 after the Valentines Update when the County of Cheshire ceased to exist and was split into two different counties.
Google Maps Updated Again
At the end of may positions for this service area business nose dived, not again!
In the first nose dive Cheshire was split and the business, although 1 mile away from Chester’s City Centre and it had a Chester Post Code found itself sitting in Flintshire.
A slight refinement to the PIN brought it back within Chester West & Chester ( the new county boundary ).
So What Changed This Time?
After some head scratching, zooming into the boundary line revealed that Flintshire (which is in Wales) was now officially Wales according to Google Maps.
No amount of jiggling this time would fix the problem, its essentially a different country.
The Fix
The business had to bite the bullet and relocate into Chester proper.
We updated address and left it showing for a week whilst citations were updated across aggregators.
Last week we reverted back to full Service Area Business and everything has returned to pre Maps update positions.
The Lesson
I realise this is a very unique situation, but if your business or clients business is sitting smack bang on a boundary line, be aware these can be updated by Google Maps at any time.
Online Ownership is a Local SEO Consultant and loves to solve crazy edge case Google My Business problems. Feel free to contact us for a no obligation chat.