No, the Google My Business description does not impact ranking

Yesterday, there was a ton of discussion on Twitter about an update in the help center that suggested the description field in Google My Business will help you rank better.

We’ve done testing on this, along with many others, and can safely say that we have found that the description field has no impact on ranking in the 3-pack. This is what I would expect to see. If Google made it that easy to rank, the results would be full of garbage that would be both bad for users and Google.

I spoke to Google yesterday and asked them to update the document as it was misleading.  As of this morning, some of it has already been removed.

Yesterday, the document said this:

Today, the part at the top has been removed. The part that was removed was:

“Think about the words customers would type to find your business, and make sure that your listing actually includes those keywords within it.”

The new text reads as-of today:

I think it still looks misleading so hopefully, Google will continue to edit it and make it more clear that shoving tons of keywords into your business description is not the key to ranking high on Google.

Big thanks to Stefan Somborac for catching this.  

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About The Author

Joy Hawkins

Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum and Sterling Sky in Canada. She is also the author of The Expert’s Guide to Local SEO, which is an advanced training manual for people wanting a detailed look at what it takes to succeed in the Local SEO space. She has been working in the industry since 2006. She is a faculty member at LocalU and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as SMX, LocalU, Pubcon and State of Search. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google My Business Forum.