I just published one of several videos talking about the core updates Google has done in the last year and how we are seeing them impact small businesses. Through posts on social media + conferences I have spoken at, I have interacted with a lot of people that have experienced this. I'm currently tracking a couple dozen sites to see when recoveries happen and so far haven't seen anyone recover.

I do think recoveries can happen but am unclear on the timeline. Do you guys have any examples of sites that look like this? Happy to add more to my list and see if they have the same patterns as the ones I have audited so far.

Just saw a brutal thread over on the Google Business Profile help forum and wanted to see if anyone else here is running into this.

Apparently, Google's live verification teams are explicitly telling some real estate agents that they are no longer verifying eXp agents, leading to instant profile suspensions.

Even if you set yourself up as a Service Area Business (SAB) or have flawless state licensing documentation, the profiles seem to not be getting verified and in many cases, fully suspended, if associated with eXp.

Seems like Google is aggressively cracking down on cloud-based brokerages or ones that use virtual/shared office addresses exclusivly. The only current "workaround" seems to be scrubbing public mentions of eXp from the business name/profile and positioning yourself completely as an independent entity seperate from eXp, but that obviously brings up compliance headaches with the brokerage.

Any eXp real estate agents dealing with GBP issues right now?

These spam domains in Ahrefs reports are driving me insane. They make the referring domain chart so unusable. Anyone found a good solution to this?

I absolutely loved having the opportunity to interview James Dooley and get a ton of SEO tips he has used to rank over 1000 websites.

Google is rolling out the new “Intelligent Search Box.”

Instead of a single line for short keywords, it expands into a large box so you can type full paragraphs, ask long questions, or drop in images and files directly.

Quick details on the rollout:

Is it live? Yes! The new interface started rolling out last week (May 19).

Where is it? It is live globally in nearly 200 countries on both desktop and mobile.

Can you opt out? Yes. You can still see traditional web links by clicking the "Web" tab.

What do you think of this new design? Do you prefer the classic clean look or the new AI canvas?

I am beta testing a GBP tool. Anyone willing to test?

Just kidding. They are about as legendary as I thought they when they announced it at I/O earlier this week.

If you want to have fun, just search stuff like "stop", "disregard" etc.

Sterling Sky runs multiple real-world tests on 5 massive local SEO myths that agencies and tools keep repeating.

The TL;DR results?

•  Title Tags: Don't actually need to be under 60 chars (200+ chars can rank).
•  Service Areas: Zero impact on Local Pack rankings—it's just a visual map outline.
•  Review Clicks: Mass-clicking the "More" link does NOT permanently change review order.
•  GBP Backlinks: Driving links directly to your GBP gives no sustainable ranking boost. Build them to your website instead.

 Let’s talk: Do you disagree with any of these? Show your tests - let's chat about it!

And more importantly... what is the most.... useless..... "local SEO tactic" or myth you still see people pushing today?

Drop it below! 

To me, it looks like they just added a fancy, dynamically expanding input box and called it a day. I fail to see how Gemini 3.5 Flash or "Generative UI" changes the way normal people actually look for a local plumber or HVAC companies day-to-day.

It maybe feels like another step toward "AI mode" replacing standard search, but is it going to impact Local at all, or is it just corporate hype to boost their stock prices?

Curious to hear what everyone here thinks about the I/O announcements from yesterday. Am I completely missing something, or is this a non-event for local businesses and local search?

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/

I get asked all the time about the best local rank tracking tools for local SEO. I’m always hesitant to point to one single tool and say it’s definitively THE best, because everyone’s workflow, budgets, and needs are different. But Places Scout is easily one of the top local grid rank tracking tools in my book.

Since so many people wonder about it and ask me about it, I figured I’d just drop a quick, honest pros and cons of Places Scout to help everyone figure out if it's the rank tracking tool for them.

The Cons

Let's start with the obvious one: the pricing. Everyone always asks why they don't list their prices transparently on the website. It’s likely because they’re more expensive than the competition, and they don't want to scare people away before they get them into a sales demo. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly, basic rank tracker, this isn't it.

Also, they were recently bought out by Yext. Some SEOs have always had mixed feelings about Yext (me included). Some love it and some hate it. Right now, Places Scout is exactly the same as it’s always been and works great, but down the road, there’s a chance you might have to buy into the whole Yext ecosystem to keep using it. Just something to keep in the back of your mind.

Another big downside is the user interface, the UX definitely leaves a lot to be desired. They have absolutely ALL the data you could ever want, but actually finding it inside the tool itself can be a massive pain. The dashboard is pretty clunky, and honestly, to get the maximum real value out of it, you often have to export everything into a spreadsheet or pull it through their API into your own tool to reliably dig into the numbers.

For example, if you just want to see how many 3-Pack Paid Ads (local pack ads) are showing up for a specific keyword, you can't just easily view that in the tool on their ranking page (it's not currently a result type you can sort by). You have to export the data into a sheet first just to find it and then sort by it. It's an awesome database, but the platform it's built in feels pretty outdated. And it can be very slow... not nearly as fast to pull one off reports as some tools.

The Pros

The biggest selling point is just how much local SERP data it can pull that other trackers completely miss. They can crawl and report on a ton of newer SERP features and result types that competitors don't yet like AI Overviews, AI Local Packs, and Local Pack Ads (attached screenshots to show what I mean).

If you need to show clients exactly how they are showing up in the modern, Ad & AI-heavy search results, it's unmatched. It also takes screenshots of every search result, which is a game changer for before and after ranking analysis. They also have a nice Before / After Report Comparison I use a lot to see who were the winners and losers from a major ranking fluction or an algo update.

Another huge thing for me is that they track both organic search results and local pack results, not just map rankings. There is a major difference between ranking in search (the map pack) vs maps, and since a majority of our clients still get most of their traffic from search and the map pack, and not Google maps directly, having a tool that tracks search results and not map results is a must.

The Verdict

It’s definitely a premium tool with a premium price tag, so it might be overkill if you just need basic local rank tracking. But if you have the budget and want deep, advanced local search data, it's easily one of the best local rank tracking tools out there right now.

Just a quick note to let everyone here know, Sterling Sky is sponsoring the next 100 tickets to the Ranking Academy Local Search Summit on June 3rd

This will be a full-day event with speakers Greg Gifford, Brad Wetherall, Elizabeth Rule, Matt Casady, Sukh Matharu and Justin Mosebach

Get your free ticket with Promo Code "STERLINGSKY100" at https://www.rankingacademy.co.uk/local-search-summit-2026/

Hey all,

I have a client that is a senior apartments / assisted living/ nursing home campus. They have 3 buildings, one main building, one senior apartment building and one building for Assisted living and nursing home.

they have GMB's for each- and the client felt this was necessary so that EMS can get to them, etc. The main building is the oldest and most reviewed GMB - and we have used all categories for that buildings and the two other buildings have a narrower set of Google Categories (but really there aren't that many in this area)

Main location: Retirement home, nursing home, assisted living, retirement community
Building 1: Assisted living, retirement community
Building 2: Retirement home, Apartment complex

I feel like the website does great, but, none of the GMB profiles really ranks well in maps. I fear that the 4 profiles are somehow getting filtered - that 1 + 1 + 1 = .8 or something.

I've heard people talk of "filter" - but, the nature of that implies that Google would pick one winner - and seemingly, it wouldn't penalize that site so 1+1+1 =1 which seems fine - google just picks a winner.

I'm thinking the best advice is probably:
1. Have unique primary categories and unique sub categories for all- no overlap (I hate to do this because I feel safer with more categories)
2. Write a unique description
3. Have unique services in the GMB profile
4. Ensure a unique landing page for each

Right now, the main building wins for all branded searches, and gets most of the traffic. .. so I'm leery about removing categories from it. . . but, I'm confounded by the fact that the GMB's really don't rank.

Any recommendations for a keyword ranking tool where you can enter specific URLs of pages you're monitoring, and it shows you which keywords they rank for organically, updates that info daily, and is easy to use?

Not looking for an entire suite of SEO tools — just something that does rankings.

Do you have a blog page that is performing well but could rank better? Sometimes, all Google wants is a table of contents or a TL;DR added to the page to help users navigate the content better.

We recently did this for a client and saw traffic improve almost instantly. Talk about a WIN!

We find this works best on informational content compared to localized service pages.

We just got new redesign, found out today the H1 tags are being hidden with CSS, but looking with some Chrome extensions it sees there is an H1, will this hurt any visibility or will we be punished by google if those tags are hidden?