If you’ve noticed a drop in some of your Google Business Profile (GBP) metrics (previously Google My Business), you might be wondering what’s going on. Maybe you’re wondering “why have my Google profile views decreased?”.
Rest assured, there’s no need to panic—the cause is a recent Google API update that’s designed to improve data integrity and show accurate search terms for local businesses. To help you make sense of the Google Business Profile performance insights update, keep reading to learn more.
What is Google Business Profile Insights?
GBP Insights provides data about a business’s local search performance, such as the number of profile views, how searchers find the business, and how they engage with the profile. Unlike other free Google tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics, Google Business Profile Insights focuses solely on local search presence and performance.
By consistently measuring local performance, businesses can gain valuable insight into their local search performance across mobile and desktop surfaces, including understanding how frequently certain search terms find their Business Profile.
The feature also offers a range of search-based metrics to measure customer engagement and performance and can be used by organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to multi-location enterprise brands.
The Google Business Profile Insights changes and what they mean for you
Google made some changes to its APIs that impact how it defines certain metrics on GBP, including profile views, searches, and direction requests. This update was made to increase the quality of data available to you on GBP.
Google has since removed certain data points from its Business Profile performance insights dashboard.
These include:
- Post views and clicks
- Query volumes grouped by direct, brand, and discovery
- Views across photos uploaded by users
As such, businesses will no longer have the same visibility into how their Posts and photos are performing.
However, businesses will still have access to:
- Map views (desktop and mobile)
- Search views (desktop and mobile)
- Website clicks
- Call clicks
- Driving direction clicks
- Keyword queries
The biggest change here is that, previously, if a business profile simply appeared on Search or Maps, it would count as a view. If a customer then clicked on a GBP to check out reviews and then hit ‘directions,’ it would count as two additional views. But now, all those interactions are wrapped up into a single unique user interaction over a 24-hour period. So no matter how many times a customer may find or click on a local business’ GBP, it’s all being counted by Google as just one view. As a result of this change, you may notice a decrease in profile views compared to previous periods, but the quality of data now reflects a more accurate representation of your customer interactions.
What can you expect to see?
With Google’s new API update, your Google Insights page will now include a search breakdown, allowing you to see the specific search terms that led customers to your GBP. This new data is a valuable opportunity for you to gain insight into your search engine optimization (SEO) and the keywords that are driving traffic to your business.