Why it matters on an HVAC site
The location matrix generates it structurally. "AC repair [town]" pages for six adjacent towns in one metro are near-identical and all target the same head term alongside their own, so they compete with each other before they compete with anyone else.
The second source is the blog. Four years of seasonal posts produces three separate articles about furnace maintenance, and the service page that should rank is the fourth-strongest candidate on its own site.
How to check it yourself
- Search Console, filtered to one query, grouped by page. Several pages sharing impressions on one query, or the ranking URL changing week to week, is the signal.
- A `site:` search for the query, which shows what the site has in contention.
- Compare the pages side by side and ask which one you would keep, because that is the decision the fix requires.
Worked through in numbers
Search Console shows "furnace repair" impressions split across four URLs on one site: the service page, two blog posts and a location page. The ranking URL changed eleven times in twelve weeks, between positions 8 and 19.
The two blog posts covered ground the service page also covered, less well.
Both posts were consolidated into the service page and redirected to it. The location page kept its own town-specific term. The service page settled at position 6 and stopped moving.
Where this sits in the rankings
Scored under Content. Several of your own pages competing for one query.