Posted on June 4, 2024
Why Your Practice’s Google Business Profile Views Have Dropped
Have you noticed that your Google Business Profile (GBP) impressions are significantly down compared to this time last year? You’re not alone!
You may have even noticed this same trend happening last year, too. No, your Google Business Profile hasn’t been cursed or filtered out; Google is simply continuing to make tweaks to the way impressions on Google Search and Google Maps are counted.
Keep reading to find out why your practice’s Google Business profile views have dropped and what this really means to your practice!
January 2023
At the beginning of 2023, Google introduced substantial changes to GBP analytics tracking. These changes were designed to improve user privacy while offering a more accurate view of the number of interactions and impressions happening on your doctor’s or practice’s profile.
Previously, all impressions were accounted for, even if the same patient viewed your profile multiple times within a single day. This led to double or triple counting of the same users, which inflated the numbers.
With this change, Google will only count the number of unique visitors to a business profile. Users can only be counted once per day per device and platform, reducing the inflated numbers from repeated visits.
In addition to changing how impressions were measured, Google also changed how driving direction clicks were counted.
Driving directions are now: “Number of unique customers who request directions to your business. We changed how we tally unique direction requests to account for multi-tapping, direction request cancellation, and spam. We expect the new direction requests metric to more accurately represent the number of times individual customers request directions to your business. We’re still experimenting with the new version of the metric, so the old one is still available on the Business Profile Performance page.”
With these changes happening early last year, doctors should start seeing more accurate year-over-year numbers this year. Although they may look lower, you can feel confident knowing the numbers are more precise.
January 2024
On January 16th of this year, Google announced it was making further changes to the directions metric, which resulted in less accurate year-over-year numbers again. A few weeks later, on February 8th, they updated their messaging to say, “Starting in January 2024, you might see fewer direction requests and a lower number of people who have viewed your business. This is because Google is making updates to better protect people’s privacy and give you more accurate results”.
Unlike last year, when Google mentioned the specific updates they were making, Google kept it brief with this singular message.
Impact on Medical Practices
Since introducing this year’s changes, we have seen an average 18% decrease in impressions and a 5% decrease in direction requests compared to the previous year. This decrease is primarily due to the updated tracking systems providing a more privacy-conscious and accurate representation of user interactions and impressions.
Moving Forward
Keep in mind that while these dips in impressions and direction requests may present temporary hurdles, they also provide valuable insight into Google’s ever-evolving landscape. Understanding these changes should allow you to have a deeper understanding of your reporting metrics.
With this in mind, if you have any questions or need further clarification on how these changes may affect your practice, don’t hesitate to reach out! Are you ready to revolutionize how your practice shows up with local search? Take the first step by contacting Glacial to learn more about local SEO!