It is conceivable to me that taking out an Adwords Express could force an algo review of the listing. It could also force some sort of reindex. Either situation might lead to the index getting confused/reoriented and not showing the listing as result. IE perhaps more than a coincidence but less than policy.

@Laura my experience with this client was that it was literally an instantaneous rebound back to the #1 position…in a matter of seconds.

@JeffM This thread is purely about Adwords Express…clearly they have not yet worked out all the bugs from the Boost transition.

As far as Google’s response, I’ll choose to believe my own eyes rather than their PR department on this one

It seems the article here is about Adwords Express, but I thought Adwords Express merely used Adwords and helped pre-populate the fields in adwords for the user? ie it wouldn’t make sense that only Adwords Express impacts position and not Adwords too?

We have noticed issues for other businesses where Places listings seem to be getting removed from Places randomly (not impacting pure organic results, only local places listing results). Again there doesn’t seem to be a tie to Adwords or Adwords Express — it just seems in my opinion to be more a bug with Google Places.

I have done research on “like markets” for plumber…i.e. “[city] plumber” and have found the same thing. Also, other strange results as well that match the stange Places results that we get in Indianapolis.

For instance, Angie’s List, a plumbing supply company, a blacktop company and a company whose website goes to a dental company in CA, all typically appear on PLACES page 1 for “indianapolis plumber” search. And other companies, our size or larger, are buried in Places. This all started on April 11th, the day of the second Panda update.

Something strange is going on.

“If they are in the top position of Places – an Adwords Express Ad will cause the Places listing to not show”

And then a few days later, Google tells you that that case was caused by a “technical error”. ???

When I saw your original post, I started thinking maybe this is why we dropped from page 1 to page 5 of the search “indianapolis plumber” (which we had been #1 for MONTHS). A few weeks BEFORE our Places dropped off (April 11th), we had started a new Boost Ad for the first time. A few days after our Places Listing disappeared, we increased our Boost Ad budget just so we could be on Page 1 again. Our Places Listing is STILL on Page 5, and we have no idea why. But our Boost Ad typically is on page 1 when searching “indianapolis plumber”. So instead of showing up in Places on page 1 for free (on a computer AND mobile), we are PAYING to be on page 1 with a Boost ad. Smart business on Google’s part, dontcha think?

I sure would LOVE your Google Rep to take a look at our situation as I have done everything I can to get back on page 1 or to get the attention of Google on the forums to no avail. Wishful thinking………

Based on what you found I’ve also started to dig around with the same results.

Granted this is not a scientific method but the closest we can get outside of Mountain View confirming this is happening.

Thank you for your research.

Nat

And each one of those companies are large companies with fully completed Places Listings.

Using other search terms related to plumbing, those same companies that were in the top 3 on Places for the “indianapolis plumber”, DID HAVE a Boost Ad show up on Page 1 and DID NOT APPEAR in Places on that page.

Bottom line…No Boost Ad = Top 3 in Places. With Boost Ad = Not listed on Places. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I have been going back and forth with the PR department on the clarity of their language. I would agree that it leaves a bit to be desired…. Bottom line is that Adwords Express does not affect a local listing but from what I gathered in our conversation… issues specific to a particular account and how Google may have cleaned up the listing could have independently made the local listing disappear.

IN other words, the two events, the starting of the ad and the loss of the local listing were two independent processes.

Either Adwords DOES effect local/organic or it doesn’t. The reps appear to be saying two totally different things.