Covers February 2021. Part of our search timeline: a month-by-month look at the changes that shaped SEO, AI search, paid ads and social media, written in November 2026 for local businesses with the benefit of hindsight.
Quick answer: In February 2021 Google turned on passage ranking for English-language searches in the US. It lets a particular section of a long page rank for a detailed question. The takeaway for UK businesses was plain: content broken into focused, well-labelled sections is found more often.
For trades with long service pages or guides, this was a nudge to organise pages around the questions customers actually ask.
What Google launched in February 2021
Google confirmed that passage ranking had gone live and affected a small share of searches at the start. It works by understanding individual passages better, so an exact answer sitting deep inside a long article can still be shown.
Why it mattered for UK trades
Detailed guides and service pages got fresh chances to rank for long, specific searches. A roofer’s guide that covers flat roofs, pitched roofs and gutter repairs could see the gutter section surface for a very specific gutter question. It pushed businesses towards answering questions directly under clear headings, an approach that also suits voice search and, later on, AI answers.
How to put it into practice
Give long guides headings written as questions, and answer each one in its opening sentence.
Include the specifics people search for, such as sizes, how long a job takes and typical prices.
Go through your main guides for solid blocks of text and split them into sections that are easy to scan.
Frequently asked questions
Is passage ranking used in the UK?
At launch it covered US searches in English, with a wider rollout expected. The idea behind it, understanding individual passages, applies widely.
Is special markup needed for passage ranking?
No. What counts is a clear structure and tightly focused writing.
Covers June 2025. Part of our search timeline: a month-by-month look at the changes that shaped SEO, AI search, paid ads and social media, written in November 2026 for local businesses with the benefit of hindsight.
Quick answer: On 30 June 2025 Google began rolling out its June core update, which carried on into July. Because AI Overviews and AI Mode were also changing how often people clicked, businesses had to work out whether a drop came from lost rankings or from searchers behaving differently.
For a local trade business watching enquiries from the website, that difference matters. The fix for a ranking drop is not the same as the response to fewer clicks on a page that still ranks well.
What happened with the June 2025 update
This was a broad core update, where Google reassesses content across the whole web. It took about three weeks to roll out, and Google offered its usual advice on quality rather than anything specific.
What it meant for local service businesses
A business that saw traffic fall could not simply blame rankings. If impressions were going up while clicks went down, AI answers were often the reason rather than lost positions. A boiler engineer whose “why is my boiler making a noise” page held its position but got fewer clicks was most likely seeing AI Overviews answer the question on the results page.
What to check and improve
In Search Console, look at average position alongside clicks before deciding what caused a drop.
See whether AI Overviews now show for the searches that lost traffic.
Keep building real expertise and usefulness into your most important service pages.
Frequently asked questions
My rankings look steady, so why are clicks dropping?
AI Overviews and other search features can answer a question on the results page, which cuts clicks even when your position stays the same.
How can I tell a core update drop from the effect of AI?
A core update drop usually shows up as lower positions. The effect of AI often shows as steady positions with a lower click-through rate.
Covers January 2020. Part of our search timeline: a month-by-month look at the changes that shaped SEO, AI search, paid ads and social media, written in November 2026 for local businesses with the benefit of hindsight.
Quick answer: In January 2020 Google stopped showing the featured snippet page a second time as a normal first-page result, and it also launched the January 2020 core update. Holding the snippet became a trade-off instead of a free extra, so the sensible approach is to judge each query by clicks rather than by whether you own the snippet.
This post is one entry in our timeline series, where we go back through search, AI, advertising and social changes one month at a time to explain what they mean for local firms. We wrote it in November 2026, so we already know how things turned out. Here we explain what January 2020 meant for local trades and service businesses.
What changed in January 2020?
Google confirmed that if a page was used in a featured snippet, it would no longer get a second spot in the regular first-page results as well. In the same month Google rolled out a broad core update that shuffled rankings across lots of sectors, without naming any particular fix.
Why it mattered for local businesses
Plenty of sites saw snippets as bonus visibility. After this change, the snippet took the place of the normal listing instead. For some searches the snippet answered the question so completely that fewer people clicked through.
Take an electrician whose page wins the snippet for “how often should an EICR be done”. If the box gives the full answer, the reader may never visit the site. That was an early glimpse of the zero-click searching that AI answers have since sped up.
What to do about it now
Use Search Console to list the searches where your page is the snippet, then track the clicks for each one before and after you edit the page.
Give a clear answer near the top, but also give people a reason to click, such as a price guide, photos of past jobs or a quote form.
When a core update arrives, use it as a cue to lift the quality of the whole site rather than hunting for one cause.
Frequently asked questions
Can I stop my page being used as a featured snippet?
You can. Adding the nosnippet or max-snippet rules will block snippets or limit their length. Be careful, because they also cut down the description shown under your normal listing, so test before rolling them out.
Do featured snippets still matter?
Yes, though differently. The clear, answer-first writing that wins snippets is exactly what gets quoted in AI Overviews and AI Mode today.
Quick answer: A zero-click search happens when someone finds what they wanted on Google’s results page, or in an AI tool, and never lands on a website. With AI Overviews, AI Mode and assistants such as ChatGPT being used more, your organic clicks can drop even while you are being seen more often. So judge success on a broader set of numbers: search impressions, how often AI tools mention you, searches for your business name, how well organic and AI visitors convert, and the enquiries or jobs that search helps bring in.
A question we get a lot from trades owners at the moment goes something like this: “Search Console says more people are seeing my site, but the clicks have gone flat or dropped. Has my SEO stopped working?”
Usually the answer is no. People search differently now. Plenty of questions get answered straight on Google or inside an AI tool, so fewer people need to visit. If your monthly report only counts clicks, solid work can look like a failure, and you might end up cutting the very thing that is getting your name in front of local customers.
Key takeaways
Rising impressions alongside falling clicks often means you are more visible, just inside answer boxes and AI summaries.
People who do click through from an AI answer are often closer to booking.
Track five groups of numbers: visibility, AI presence, demand for your name, engagement and real business results.
Agree the new measures with whoever reads your reports (a partner, your accountant, yourself) before the figures shift, not afterwards.
What is pushing clicks down?
Three changes are landing at the same time:
AI summaries handle the easy questions. Things like “what does a powerflush do” or “how long does a combi boiler last” are more and more often answered at the top of Google.
AI Overviews and AI Mode list more sources. Your page can be cited there, and logged as an impression, without anyone clicking it.
Some research now starts in AI assistants. A homeowner might ask ChatGPT or Gemini to suggest a few roofers, then only visit the websites on that short list.
Search has not become less important. A bigger share of its job is simply done before anyone reaches your site.
The numbers we track for local businesses
Group
What we measure
Where the data lives
Visibility
Impressions and average position across your main service topics, rather than single keywords
Google Search Console
AI presence
How often you are mentioned or cited, and your share of voice, across a set list of customer questions
A monthly AI visibility scorecard
Demand for your name
Searches for your business name and branded service terms
Google Ads, Google Trends and Search Console
Engagement
Engaged sessions and enquiry rate for visitors arriving from Google’s organic results or from AI tools
Google Analytics 4
Business results
Calls, enquiries, bookings and revenue traced back to organic search or AI tools, along with answers to “how did you find us?”
GA4, your CRM or job system, enquiry forms
Setting it up step by step
1. Turn keywords into service topics
Rather than tracking 200 separate rankings, bundle them into 10 to 20 topics that line up with the work you actually do, for example “boiler repair Dundee”, “boiler installation” and “gas safety certificates”. Report impressions and clicks for each topic. It is far easier to follow and it does not jump about every time one ranking moves.
2. Start an AI visibility scorecard
Each month, put the same list of customer questions into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI features, and note whether your business comes up. Keep the list fixed so the results can be compared over time.
3. Treat searches for your name as an early signal
Many people who spot your business in an AI answer go on to search for you by name later. When branded searches climb steadily month after month, that is a strong sign your no-click visibility is paying off.
4. Give AI referrals their own channel in GA4
Set up a custom channel group in GA4 that pulls together visits from AI tools, for example copilot.microsoft.com, gemini.google.com, perplexity.ai and chatgpt.com. Then compare how those visitors convert against your other channels. In many accounts this traffic converts well, even if there is not much of it yet.
5. Ask every new customer
Put a “How did you hear about us?” question on your enquiry form, and include “ChatGPT or another AI tool” as one of the choices. What customers tell you picks up influence that analytics simply cannot see.
How to explain it to a business partner?
Keep the message short: “Our business now appears in more places, AI answers among them. Because customers do not always have to click through, we judge success on how often we are seen and recommended, how many people look us up by name, and how many enquiries and jobs come from search as a whole.”
Back it up with at least six months of trend data. A short dip in clicks is much less of a worry when name searches and enquiries are holding steady or climbing.
Frequently asked questions
What does zero-click search mean?
It describes a search where the person finds what they need right there in Google’s results or in an AI reply, so they never go on to visit a website.
Should I cut my SEO spend if clicks are going down?
Normally not. First check whether impressions, searches for your name and enquiries are holding up. Dropping SEO can also knock you out of AI answers, because those answers tend to draw on strong, well-optimised pages.
Can I win some of those clicks back?
Some of them. Pages that give more than a one-line answer, such as price guides, comparisons, worked examples, quote calculators and online booking, give people a reason to click. Simple definition pages will carry on losing clicks.
How soon will the new measures show a trend?
Allow three to six months. Monthly AI visibility checks and branded search figures become dependable once you have several months side by side.
Quick answer: Pick one main search phrase for each category, open the page with two or three helpful sentences above the products, keep filter and sort URLs from flooding Google with near copies, link related categories to each other and put honest buying advice under the product grid. Category pages tend to beat product pages for wider searches such as “wood burning stoves” because they offer a choice.
Plenty of trades and local service firms now run a small online shop next to the day job. A garage sells tyres, a heating engineer sells spares and smart thermostats, a landscaper sells sleepers and gravel bags, a salon sells hair care. When we look at these sites, the pages with the most untapped potential are almost always the category pages.
Individual products come and go as suppliers change. A solid category page, on the other hand, can hold a page-one position for years, steering buyers towards whatever you have in stock at the time. Below is the order we work through when we tidy one up.
Key takeaways
People mostly search for a type of product (“composite decking boards”) rather than one exact item, so category pages line up with more searches.
Give each category its own main phrase and check that no two pages are chasing the same one.
Filters and sorting can quietly generate thousands of almost identical URLs. Choose which of them Google is allowed to see.
A brief intro above the products plus real advice underneath helps rankings and sales at the same time.
Why are category pages so important for search?
A category page is built for the moment someone knows roughly what they need but has not picked a product. A person searching “outdoor wall lights” is browsing, and a category page gives them a range to compare. Product pages, by contrast, usually only match searches that include a brand or model number.
Category pages also pick up internal links without much effort. Your menu, your breadcrumbs and every product in that range point back to them, which signals to Google that they matter. If those pages are thin or confusing, all of that authority goes to waste.
Step 1: Give every category its own search phrase
Begin with keyword research rather than the menu you already have. Sort the phrases customers really type into groups, then assign each group to one category page. A handy test: if the same set of products would satisfy two phrases, those phrases belong on one page.
Search phrase
Best page
Reason
wood burning stove
/stoves/wood-burning/
The same products answer both searches
wood burner for sale
/stoves/wood-burning/
Another way of asking for the same thing
multi fuel stove
/stoves/multi-fuel/
Different products, so a different page
stove and flue kit
/stove-packages/
A different buying need altogether
Where two pages are fighting over one phrase, either combine them or give each a clearly separate focus. Pages that compete with each other split the signals Google sees, and it is common for neither to get off page two.
Step 2: Open with a short, useful introduction
Shoppers want to reach the products fast, so keep the wording above the grid short: two or three sentences at most. Its job is to reassure people they have landed in the right place, work in your main phrase naturally, and mention what sets your range apart, for example local delivery, fitting available or stock held in your own unit.
Skip the old trick of a long paragraph stuffed with keywords. It no longer helps rankings and it simply shoves the products further down the screen.
Step 3: Get the on-page essentials right
Title tag: start with the category phrase and finish with your business name, such as “Wood Burning Stoves | Hearthside Heating”. Stay under roughly 60 characters.
H1 heading: just one on the page, using the category name a customer would expect to see.
Meta description: a specific summary that gives a reason to click, such as the size of the range or a delivery or fitting promise.
Breadcrumbs: visible to shoppers, with BreadcrumbList structured data added behind the scenes.
Image alt text: a short, accurate description of each product rather than a string of keywords.
Step 4: Keep filter and sort URLs under control
Filters make shopping easier and SEO harder. Each mix of size, colour, price and sort order can produce a separate URL, so even a modest shop can generate a vast number of near copies, sometimes running into six figures. Google then spends its crawl time on those pages and not on the ones that earn you money.
We keep it simple:
Make a list of filter combinations that people really search for, such as “black composite decking”. Give those their own indexable page with a unique title and introduction.
Keep all other combinations out of the index, either with a canonical tag pointing at the main category or by stopping crawlers from following those links.
Never allow sort orders such as “price low to high” to become pages Google can index.
If your shop has more than a handful of filters, read Google’s guidance on faceted navigation from start to finish.
Step 5: Put real buying advice underneath the products
The space below the grid is where original, helpful content belongs: how to choose, what the different materials or ratings mean, sizing, fitting and care. Aim it at a customer who is still making up their mind rather than at Google. Somewhere between three and six brief sections, each under its own clear subheading, tends to work well.
Content like this also gives AI search tools something to quote, because they lean towards clear, factual answers to common buying questions. As a tradesperson you have an advantage here: you fit and repair these products every week, so you know what goes wrong.
Step 6: Connect your categories with internal links
Internal links show Google how your range hangs together and help a shopper who has not quite found what they want. Add a row of related categories to each page, link from your guides to the right categories and check that each key category sits no more than two or three clicks from the homepage.
What should you do with seasonal or out-of-stock categories?
Do not remove a category page just because stock is thin or the season is over. If it has rankings and links, leave it live, say when stock is due back and point people to alternatives. For ranges that return each year, such as log stores in autumn or garden furniture in spring, use the same URL every season so its history keeps building.
Frequently asked questions
How many words should a category page have?
There is no magic number. A couple of sentences at the top plus several hundred words of honest buying advice under the grid is a sensible place to start. Write what is useful to a customer and stop there.
Should filtered pages be indexed?
Only the combinations people genuinely search for, such as “grey composite decking”, and each of those needs its own title and introduction. Every other filter and sort combination should stay out of Google’s index.
Which ranks better, a category page or a product page?
For broad searches with no brand in them, category pages usually win because they offer a choice. Searches naming a particular brand or model are where product pages usually come out on top.
How long before category page changes show results?
Small changes, like sharper titles or extra internal links, can start to move rankings within weeks once Google has recrawled the pages. A bigger restructure tends to take two to four months before things settle down.
Quick answer: E-E-A-T is short for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google’s quality raters use it as a yardstick for how reliable a page is. You won’t find it listed as one ranking factor, but making it obvious, with real named people, genuine jobs you’ve done, accurate facts with sources and open business details, gives Google and AI assistants good reason to trust what you publish.
Few SEO terms get quoted as often, or misread as badly, as E-E-A-T. Some people sell it as a tick-box list that will push you up the rankings. Others wave it away as abstract theory with no practical use.
We see it differently. For a plumber, electrician or roofer, E-E-A-T is mostly a written-down version of what makes a customer pick up the phone: proof you’ve done the work before, you know what you’re talking about, other people vouch for you and you’re a genuine, contactable business.
Key takeaways
The idea started in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. It’s a picture of what quality looks like, not one ranking factor.
Trust sits at the centre. Experience, expertise and authority all feed into it.
It carries most weight on subjects that can affect someone’s health, finances, safety or wellbeing.
AI search tools lean on similar signals when picking which websites to cite.
The four parts of E-E-A-T in plain English
Part
What it means
How a local trade might show it
Experience
You have done or used the thing yourself
A heating engineer in Dundee writing about a boiler swap they fitted last month, with their own photos of the job
Expertise
You have the relevant knowledge or qualifications
A guide to consumer unit upgrades written or checked by a qualified electrician
Authoritativeness
Others recognise you as a go-to source
Mentions from a trade association, the local paper or respected local websites
Trustworthiness
You are accurate, honest, safe and dependable
Full contact details, facts backed by sources, secure payment pages and genuine reviews
The extra “E” for experience arrived in December 2022. Google added it because, on many subjects, having actually done something can count for as much as holding a formal certificate.
Does Google score your E-E-A-T?
No, there is no hidden E-E-A-T number attached to your site. What Google does is combine lots of signals that tend to match what a person would see as experienced, expert, authoritative and trustworthy.
Quality raters read the guidelines and grade sample results. Their feedback lets Google check whether its systems are doing a good job. The raters themselves cannot move your site up or down.
Which subjects get the toughest scrutiny?
Google applies a higher bar to “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) pages. These cover areas like health, money, legal matters and safety, where bad advice could do real damage to someone.
Plenty of trades brush against safety: gas work, electrics, structural building work and roofing at height, for example. If your content strays into that territory, visible expertise and trust stop being a nice extra and become essential.
Practical ways to build E-E-A-T into your site
Put real people’s names on your content
Give every article a named author and a short bio covering the experience that makes them worth listening to.
Set up author pages showing qualifications, trade memberships and other work they’ve done.
On technical or safety topics, add a “checked by” line naming the qualified person who reviewed the page.
Prove you have done the work
Use photos from your own jobs, your own figures and your own examples in place of stock images and generic tips.
Explain what you did on a job, how it turned out and what you would do differently.
Publish case studies with genuine outcomes, but only where the customer is happy to be named.
Earn recognition away from your website
Win mentions and links from respected local publications, trade bodies and suppliers you work with.
Offer to speak at local business events, contribute to trade reports or comment to the press.
Keep your LinkedIn profile and listings on relevant directories consistent and up to date.
Leave no doubt you are a genuine business
Display your full trading name, registered address, phone number and company number.
Have proper About, Contact, Privacy and Terms pages, plus a complaints or guarantee policy where it fits.
Back up any facts or figures with a source, and show the date each page was last updated.
Show real reviews from independent platforms, and reply calmly and professionally to any poor ones.
How does E-E-A-T carry over to AI search?
AI assistants don’t publish how they weigh sources, but they share Google’s core challenge: working out who to believe. Pages written by named experts, supported by sources and in line with what other trusted sites say stand a better chance of being quoted in an AI answer.
Frequently asked questions
What is E-E-A-T short for?
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. You will find the term in the quality rater guidelines Google publishes.
Which of the four matters most?
Trust. Google’s guidelines put trust at the top, with the other three all helping to build it.
Do I need certificates to prove expertise?
Not for everything. On many subjects, hands-on experience is enough. Where a page gives financial, legal or medical advice, it is strongly advised to have formal qualifications or a qualified expert review.
Can content written with AI still show strong E-E-A-T?
Google looks at the quality of content, not the tool used to write it. Even so, pages lacking real human experience, expert checking or original insight tend to struggle to show E-E-A-T, whatever produced them.
Want help with this? We help trades and local service businesses build author pages, case studies and trust signals into their content. See our content marketing service or Get in touch.
Quick answer: If your business works from more than one base, give each one a verified Google Business Profile and a dedicated page on your website, make sure the name, address and phone number match word for word everywhere, gather reviews branch by branch, and fill each location page with real local detail instead of the same copy with a different town dropped in.
With a single yard or office, local SEO stays fairly manageable. Once a removals firm, a heating company or a chain of salons has three, ten or twenty bases, little mismatches start adding up, near-identical pages appear, and one or two branches drop out of the map results without anybody spotting it.
Here is how we set up and look after local SEO for UK trades and service businesses that operate from several locations.
Key takeaways
Google decides local results on relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance and prominence are the two you can work on.
Every genuine, staffed base deserves a Google Business Profile of its own plus a dedicated page on your site.
Pages that are copied and pasted with only the town changed seldom rank. Give each one detail that truly differs.
Each branch needs its own reviews, not just the company as a whole, and you should never reward people for positive ones.
What does Google look at when choosing local businesses to show?
According to Google, local rankings mostly come down to three factors. Relevance is how closely your profile fits what someone searched for. Distance is how near you are to the searcher, or to the place they typed. Prominence is how well known and well reviewed your business is. Since you can’t pick up a branch and move it, our effort goes into relevance and prominence.
Give every base its own Google Business Profile
Any location where customers visit you, or where staff are based to serve a set area, should have a verified profile of its own. Putting them all in one business group inside Google Business Profile makes changing details across every branch far quicker.
On each profile, get these right:
Business name: use the name exactly as it’s written on your van, sign or shopfront. Stuffing in keywords or place names that aren’t really part of your name goes against Google’s guidelines and can lead to suspension.
Categories: pick the tightest primary category that fits, such as “Heating contractor” rather than something broad, then add sensible secondary ones.
Address or service area: show your address if people come to you. If you go to them, as a plumber or roofer does, hide the address and list the areas you cover.
Opening hours: keep them correct, bank holidays included.
Website link: send each profile to the matching branch page, not to your homepage.
Photos: upload genuine pictures of each base, the people who work there and jobs they’ve done.
Create a dedicated page for each location
Each branch should have a page on your website, for example /locations/dundee/, linked from a main page listing all your areas. That gives Google something to rank for searches such as “boiler repair in Dundee” and gives the Business Profile a relevant page to send people to.
A strong branch page usually has:
Name of the branch, its complete address, phone number and opening times, typed as text rather than shown in an image.
A map embed and directions, with notes on parking or public transport if customers visit.
The services that branch offers, if they’re not the same everywhere.
The people who work there, with names and photos.
Reviews or examples of jobs from customers of that branch.
LocalBusiness structured data for that particular location.
How can you stop location pages looking like duplicates?
The classic slip is a single template reused fifty times with only the town name swapped. Google tends to treat pages like that as low value, and they seldom rank well. Every page needs material that really belongs to that place. Good things to draw on include:
Jobs or customers in that area, shared with their permission.
The questions that customers of that branch ask most.
Practical local information, such as where to park, nearby landmarks or access details.
A short introduction from the person who runs that branch.
If there’s genuinely nothing distinctive to say about a location, it’s worth asking whether it needs its own page at all.
Make your business details match everywhere they appear
Your name, address and phone number, often called NAP, should be identical on Facebook, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, your Google Business Profile, your own website and the big UK directories like Yell and Thomson Local. Small differences, like “Ltd” on one and “Limited” on another, or an old mobile number left on a directory, leave search engines and AI tools less sure that your details are right.
Build up reviews at every branch
Reviews affect both where you rank and whether people pick you. Make asking for a review part of each branch’s routine, such as a follow-up text or email once the job is signed off, or a QR code on the invoice, and respond to every review whether it’s glowing or critical.
Keep within the rules. Google’s policies forbid offering incentives for reviews and “review gating”, which means only asking customers you expect to be happy. UK law goes further: under the 2024 Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, fake reviews and hidden incentivised reviews are banned, and those rules have applied from 6 April 2025.
Measure results branch by branch
Look at each location on its own, not only the business as a whole. Handy figures are the phone calls, website clicks and direction requests each Business Profile generates, your map pack positions in each town, and the number of enquiries or bookings each branch receives. Adding UTM parameters to each profile’s website link lets you see that traffic separately in GA4.
Frequently asked questions
Am I allowed a Google Business Profile for every branch?
Yes, provided each one is a genuine location where customers are served in person, or a base your staff work from to cover a local area. Virtual offices and addresses with nobody there don’t qualify.
Can I put the town name in my Business Profile name?
Only when it’s part of your genuine business name as shown on your signs and vans. Putting in keywords or places that aren’t in your real name breaks Google’s guidelines.
How long should a location page be?
Usefulness counts for more than word count. A few hundred words of real local detail, alongside contact details, a map, the team and reviews, normally beats a long page of generic copy.
Will location pages help me show up in AI search?
Yes. When AI tools answer questions like “best electrician near me”, they lean on websites, reviews and Business Profiles. Location pages that are clear and consistent help them find your details and believe them.
Our website uses cookies from third party services to improve your browsing experience. Read more about this and how you can control cookies by clicking "Privacy Preferences".
