April 2014

Widespread drop in rank for many local web design companies suggests an algorithmic change at Google, apparently reducing the earlier weight placed on locality, or at least demanding better signals of one’s local roots.

The worst hammered was probably websitedesignpeterborough.ca, with drops in rank for 20 search terms, a rise in only one, with four remaining unchanged since last month (they did retain #1 rank for “website design peterborough”. The least affected was peterboroughwebdesign.ca who gained rank on 12 search terms, lost on only 3 and held stable for 9.

The main changes in gross listings benefitted Kijiji and ca.indeed.com, but it is worrying to see large non-local portals like these increasing in relevance at the expense of local firm. One local company who managed to jump from 26 listings appearing in the research to 30 was studio-n.ca, who appears to have a tight lock on #1 for a number of high-value terms like “web designer peterborough”.

Here are the main local listing:

blackcapdesign.com
chrisgooderham.com
cmswebsolutions.com (Port Perry)
colinpurcell.ca
coppinwebs.com (Lindsay)
emmattweb.com
itsadesignthing.com
liftlockmedia.com
peterboroughdesign.ca
peterboroughwebdesign.ca
promotionmarketing.ca
reddiamonddesigns.com
secondglancedigitalmedia.com
slydog.ca
studio-n.ca
thepcprofessor.ca
visualeyez.ca
websitedesignpeterborough.ca
wedesigngroup.ca
worldwidewebdesign.ca