On February 20th, Google Business Profile statistics underwent changes that impacted the number of available key performance indicators for businesses. Many have observed a decrease in their statistics for Searches, Views, and Interactions. This article explains the reasons for this change which you may have seen in the GBP Dashboard.
Old vs new statistics
Previously, Views referred to the number of times a listing was viewed on Google Maps or Search. Google would count each view, even if it was made by the same user multiple times in one day or just minutes apart.
However, Google now defines the number of impressions of a listing as impressions of the business on Google Maps/Search. If the same user visits a listing multiple times in one day, they are counted as one impression. This means that if a user visits a listing several times from the same platform (Google/Maps) and the same device (mobile/desktop) within 24 hours, these views will only be counted once.
Interactions
As for Interactions, the changes in statistics only affect direction requests to the point of sale. Previously, Google counted every click for direction requests to the point of sale as a visit. Now, Google counts the number of unique direction requests per day. This new method of counting unique customers who request directions to a business takes into account things like multi-tapping, direction request cancellation and spam. This change should provide a more accurate representation of the number of times individual customers request directions to a business.
Read our article about Google Business Profile API updates in 2023.
Your visibility isn’t decreasing
It’s important to note that despite the decrease in statistics, the visibility of a business has not changed. The indicators tracked are simply different and closer to reality. Instead of counting the number of visits or interactions, Google now counts the number of unique users per day for Views and Direction Requests and per month for Searches. Check the table summarising all the changes discussed in this article:
| Before | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | Number of visits to the listings after a direct, discovery or brand search | Number of unique users per month who have made a specific request |
| Visits | Number of visits to a listing on Google Maps or Search | Number of unique users per day who have visited the listing |
| Direction Requests | Number of clicks on the direction request button on a listing | Number of unique users per day who have made a direction request |
