Local Pack/Finder Ranking Factors
- My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 19%
- Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 17%
- On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 14%
- Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 13%
- Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 13%
- Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 10%
- Personalization 10%
- Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%
Localized Organic Ranking Factors
- Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 29%
- On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 24%
- Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 11%
- Personalization 9%
- Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 8%
- My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 7%
- Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 7%
- Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%
Introduction
This year’s Local Search Ranking Factors marks at least one significant change: David Mihm has handed over the data collection, analysis, and publication of the survey results to me, Darren Shaw (official announcement).
Thank you, David, for trusting me with this important industry resource. It is an honor to follow in your footsteps with this, and I hope to live up to the high standards you have set for it year after year.
My apologies to the community for the delay between the last Local Search Ranking Factors (September 24th 2015) and this one. While David passed the reins to me in the summer of 2016, it has taken me this long to get everything organized and put together. I now have a much deeper appreciation for the amount of work David has invested in this for the past eight years. :)
Changes Made to the Survey
I have kept David’s survey style mostly intact, aside from the following 5 changes:
1) Foundational factors versus the competitive difference-maker factors
Many of the local search ranking factors are “foundational,” in that they are needed to have any chance at showing in the local results, but continuing to focus on them isn’t going to move the needle (proper GMB categories, for example). On the other hand, many of the factors can be considered “competitive difference-makers” in that continuing to invest in them will push your local rankings further.
By surveying the participants on which factors are foundational and which factors are competitive difference-makers, I’m hoping to provide some guidance on what to focus on in your ongoing local search work, after you have laid down the proper foundation.
2) Changes in approach to local search since the Possum update
Has the Possum update had much of an impact on anyone’s approach to local search? Here I ask participants to rate the top 5 factors they’re focusing on more since Possum, and which factors they’re focusing on less.
3) Breaking down citation consistency into multiple factors
How far do you need to go with citation consistency? Do you need to spend hours and hours hunting down and fixing ALL incorrect citations that exist on the web? For some businesses that have been around for a long time and have gone through many name, address, and phone number changes, this could mean hundreds or thousands of incorrect listings to clean up. Do you just do the top 10 sites? The top 30?
To answer this, I removed “Consistency of Structured Citations” as a general factor and replaced it with these 4 new factors:
- Consistency of Citations on the Primary Data Sources (aggregators in the US and primary data sources in other countries)
- Consistency of Citations on Tier 1 Citation Sources (the top 5 to 10 most prominent structured citation sources in the country)
- Consistency of Citations on Tier 2 Citation Sources (the next 10 to 50 most prominent structured citation sources in the country)
- Consistency of Citations on Tier 3 Citation Sources (the hundreds of other business listing sites out there)
4) Expanded commentary by asking direct questions
Each year of the survey, I find that the real gold can be found by reading the many insightful comments that participants provide. Phil Rozek suggested the excellent idea that I could encourage more commentary by prompting with questions. I tried to leave the questions open-ended enough to get a broad range of answers, and it appears to have worked well, since I’ve ended up with 33 pages of incredible insights from the best in the business.
5) Factors dropped and factors added
There were a total of 115 ranking factors and 27 negative ranking factors in the 2015 survey. Some of these factors just aren’t relevant anymore (for example, you can no longer edit the description on your Google listing), and some of them were just so obscure that they never made anyone’s top 20 list anyway (“Number of +1s on Website”). Also, many new factors that we’re seeing these days weren’t on the list; I went through all the factors, removing 32 of them and adding 38.
For anyone interested, you can see the full list of added, removed, and updated factors here.
Definitions
Is it called a snack pack, a local pack, a pak, or something else? I'm hoping to help standardize the terminology used across the industry, particularly with the pack types. I can’t think of a better place to define these than on the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey results.
GMB Listing
Google My Business Listing. Your primary listing at Google that is editable in the GMB dashboard and publicly accessible at 3 locations:
GMB Landing Page
The page that a GMB listing links to. Usually the homepage or a location page. (example)
Local Pack
The regular local 3-pack that appears for most local search terms. (example)
Local ABC Pack
A local 3-pack with A, B, and C to the left of each result. No review stars, ratings, or counts appear for this type. This pack type is returned for branded terms such as "Starbucks" and, inexplicably, for storage and gas station terms. (example)
Local Snack Pack
This style of local 3-pack appears for dining, hospitality, and entertainment terms. Results have a photo, no phone number, and no links to the website. (example)
Local Sponsored Pack
The special pack type that is currently appearing in San Diego for plumbers and locksmiths. It appears in addition to the regular local pack. (example 1) There are also these sponsored pack types appearing for home services businesses in the San Francisco area: (example 2)
Local Finder
The complete list of local results that appears when the "More places" link at the bottom of a local pack is clicked. (example)
The Survey
The 2017 survey is structured into five primary sections:
- Thematic Ranking Signals
- Specific Ranking Factors in Local Pack/Finder and Local Organic Results
- Foundational vs. Competitive Ranking Factors
- Impact of the Possum Update
- Negative Ranking Factors
I. General Ranking Factors
In this section, participants are asked, “In your opinion, to what extent do each of the following thematic clusters contribute to rankings across result types at Google?” They then enter a percentage of influence for each of these 8 thematic areas, for both local pack/finder results and local organic results:
- My Business signals (proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.)
- Citation signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.)
- On-page signals (presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.)
- Link signals (inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.)
- Review signals (review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.)
- Social signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.)
- Behavioral/mobile signals (click-through rate, mobile clicks-to-call, check-ins, etc.)
- Personalization
The results here give us a sense of which general ranking factor areas are more important than others.
II. Specific Ranking Factors
In part A of this section, I asked the experts to rank the top 20 individual ranking factors (out of a total list of 113) that have the biggest impact on pack/finder rankings.
In part B of this section, I asked them to rank the top 20 factors from the same list, only this time to rank them based on impact on localized organic rankings.
Results were then tabulated via inverse scoring, where the number one-ranked factor received the most "points" for that question, and the lowest-ranked factor received the fewest points. (The factors ranking outside the top 20 for all respondents ended up with zero points.)
III. Foundational vs Competitive Factors
In this section, I asked the experts to rank the 10 factors they think are the most important foundational ranking factors, and to rank the 10 factors they think are competitive difference makers.
Results were then tabulated via inverse scoring, where the #1 ranked factor received the most "points" for that question, and the lowest-ranked factor received the fewest points. (The factors ranking outside the top 10 for all respondents ended up with zero points.)
IV. Impact of the Possum Update
Here, I asked the experts to rank the five factors they were paying more attention to since the Possum update, and the five factors they were paying less attention to since the update.
Results were then tabulated via inverse scoring, where the #1 ranked factor received the most "points" for that question, and the lowest-ranked factor received the fewest points. (The factors ranking outside the top 5 for all respondents ended up with zero points.)
IV. Negative Ranking Factors
In this section, I asked the experts to rank 34 negative factors in order of most damaging to most benign.
Discussion
My initial reaction to the results of this survey can be found here on the Moz blog. If you would like to comment on this project, please join the discussion here.
Darren Shaw Edmonton, Alberta, Canada February 27, 2017
Top 50 Local Pack Finder Factors
#1 492 total
Proximity of Address to the Point of Search (Searcher-Business Distance)
#2 436 total
Physical Address in City of Search
#3 402 total
Proper GMB Category Associations
#4 400 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Domain
#5 361 total
Consistency of Citations on the Primary Data Sources
#6 288 total
Domain Authority of Website
#7 244 total
Product/Service Keyword in GMB Business Title
#8 243 total
Quality/Authority of Structured Citations
#9 234 total
Consistency of Citations on Tier 1 Citation Sources
#10 197 total
Click-Through Rate from Search Results
#11 182 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#12 166 total
Location Keyword in GMB Business Title
#13 165 total
Verified GMB Listing
#14 154 total
HTML NAP Matching GMB Listing NAP
#15 145 total
GMB Primary Category Matches a Broader Category of the Search Category (e.g. primary category=restaurant & search=pizza)
#16 135 total
Diversity of Inbound Links to Domain
#17 134 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain
#18 134 total
Quantity of Native Google Reviews (with text)
#19 125 total
City, State in GMB Landing Page Title
#20 119 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain from Locally Relevant Domains
#21 106 total
Quality/Authority of Unstructured Citations (Newspaper Articles, Blog Posts, Gov Sites, Industry Associations)
#22 106 total
Page Authority of GMB Landing Page URL
#23 106 total
Topical (Product/Service) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#24 94 total
High Numerical Ratings of Business by Google Users (e.g. 4–5)
#25 89 total
Age of GMB Listing
#26 88 total
Product/Service Keywords in Reviews
#27 83 total
Mobile-Friendly/Responsive Website
#28 82 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain from Industry-Relevant Domains
#29 80 total
Quantity of Citations from Locally Relevant Domains
#30 75 total
Proximity of Address to Centroid of Other Businesses in Industry
#31 73 total
NAP in Schema/JSON-LD on GMB Landing Page URL
#32 70 total
Local Area Code on GMB Listing
#33 63 total
Product/Service Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to Domain
#34 63 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#35 63 total
Clicks to Call Business
#36 61 total
Association of Photos with GMB Listing
#37 59 total
Prominence on Key Industry-Relevant Domains
#38 58 total
Location Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to Domain
#39 54 total
Diversity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#40 52 total
Quantity of Citations from Industry-Relevant Domains
#41 50 total
Geographic (City/Neighborhood) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#42 50 total
Product/Service Keyword in GMB Landing Page Title
#43 50 total
Driving Directions to Business Clicks
#44 49 total
Enhancement/Completeness of Citations
#45 49 total
Proper Category Associations on Aggregators and Tier 1 Citation Sources
#46 49 total
Positive Sentiment in Reviews
#47 47 total
Quantity of Structured Citations (IYPs, Data Aggregators)
#48 47 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL from Locally Relevant Domains
#49 47 total
Overall Velocity of Reviews (Native + Third-Party)
#50 44 total
Proximity of Address to Centroid
Top 50 Local Organic Factors
#1 519 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Domain
#2 510 total
Domain Authority of Website
#3 308 total
Diversity of Inbound Links to Domain
#4 300 total
Topical (Product/Service) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#5 297 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain
#6 251 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain from Locally Relevant Domains
#7 230 total
Click-Through Rate from Search Results
#8 220 total
Geographic (City/Neighborhood) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#9 217 total
Product/Service Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to Domain
#10 213 total
Mobile-Friendly/Responsive Website
#11 209 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain from Industry-Relevant Domains
#12 197 total
Volume of Quality Content on Entire Website
#13 189 total
City, State in GMB Landing Page Title
#14 182 total
Location Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to Domain
#15 180 total
Physical Address in City of Search
#16 175 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#17 159 total
Product/Service Keyword in Domain
#18 147 total
Page Authority of GMB Landing Page URL
#19 141 total
Proximity of Address to the Point of Search (Searcher-Business Distance)
#20 132 total
Product/Service Keyword in GMB Landing Page Title
#21 126 total
Volume of Quality Content on Service Pages
#22 123 total
Quality/Authority of Structured Citations
#23 122 total
Geographic Keyword in Domain
#24 115 total
Consistency of Citations on The Primary Data Sources
#25 115 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Landing Page URL from Industry-Relevant Domains
#26 108 total
Loadtime of GMB Landing Page URL
#27 103 total
City, State in Most/All Website Title Tags
#28 101 total
Diversity of Anchor Text to Domain
#29 86 total
Quantity of Citations from Locally Relevant Domains
#30 80 total
City, State in GMB Landing Page URL
#31 79 total
NAP in Schema/JSON-LD on GMB Landing Page URL
#32 76 total
HTML NAP Matching GMB Listing NAP
#33 74 total
Prominence on Key Industry-Relevant Domains
#34 74 total
Quality/Authority of Unstructured Citations (Newspaper Articles, Blog Posts, Gov Sites, Industry Associations)
#35 74 total
Quantity of Citations from Industry-Relevant Domains
#36 73 total
Diversity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#37 73 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL from Locally Relevant Domains
#38 72 total
City, State in GMB Landing Page H1/H2 Tags
#39 57 total
Volume of Searches for Business Name
#40 53 total
Verified GMB Listing
#41 50 total
Business Title in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to Domain
#42 46 total
Length of Dwell Time on GMB Landing Page
#43 45 total
Location Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#44 44 total
Proper GMB Category Associations
#45 42 total
Proximity of Address to Centroid
#46 42 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#47 40 total
Authority of Third-Party Sites on which Reviews are Present
#48 39 total
Product/Service Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#49 39 total
Product/Service Keywords in Reviews
#50 38 total
Quantity of Unstructured Citations (Newspaper Articles, Blog Posts)
Top 30 Foundational Factors
#1 243 total
Proper GMB Category Associations
#2 199 total
Consistency of Citations on The Primary Data Sources
#3 189 total
Physical Address in City of Search
#4 143 total
Proximity of Address to the Point of Search (Searcher-Business Distance)
#5 137 total
Consistency of Citations on Tier 1 Citation Sources
#6 122 total
Verified GMB Listing
#7 61 total
HTML NAP Matching GMB Listing NAP
#8 56 total
Domain Authority of Website
#9 51 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Domain
#10 47 total
GMB Primary Category Matches a Broader Category of the Search Category (e.g. primary category=restaurant & search=pizza)
#11 47 total
Mobile-Friendly/Responsive Website
#12 46 total
Quality/Authority of Structured Citations
#13 44 total
Consistency of Citations on Tier 2 Citation Sources
#14 39 total
Geographic (City/Neighborhood) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#15 36 total
Volume of Quality Content on Service Pages
#16 34 total
Local Area Code on GMB Listing
#17 34 total
City, State in GMB Landing Page Title
#18 33 total
Age of GMB Listing
#19 30 total
Volume of Quality Content on Entire Website
#20 28 total
Proper Category Associations on Aggregators and Tier 1 Citation Sources
#21 24 total
Topical (Product/Service) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#22 24 total
Quantity of Native Google Reviews (with text)
#23 23 total
Product/Service Keyword in GMB Landing Page Title
#24 20 total
City, State in GMB Landing Page URL
#25 20 total
NAP in Schema/JSON-LD on GMB Landing Page URL
#26 19 total
Proximity of Address to Centroid
#27 19 total
Enhancement/Completeness of Citations
#28 15 total
Numerical Percentage of GMB Listing
#29 15 total
City, State in GMB Landing Page H1/H2 Tags
#30 13 total
Product/Service Keyword in GMB Business Title
Top 30 Competitive Difference-Makers
#1 156 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Domain
#2 85 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain from Industry-Relevant Domains
#3 84 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
#4 71 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain from Locally Relevant Domains
#5 69 total
Quantity of Native Google Reviews (w/text)
#6 65 total
Click-Through Rate from Search Results
#7 64 total
Quality/Authority of Unstructured Citations (Newspaper Articles, Blog Posts, Gov Sites, Industry Associations)
#8 59 total
Domain Authority of Website
#9 58 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL from Locally Relevant Domains
#10 52 total
Diversity of Inbound Links to Domain
#11 49 total
Mobile-Friendly/Responsive Website
#12 47 total
Quality/Authority of Structured Citations
#13 47 total
Page Authority of GMB Landing Page URL
#14 41 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain
#15 37 total
Quantity of Citations from Locally Relevant Domains
#16 37 total
Loadtime of GMB Landing Page URL
#17 37 total
Product/Service Keywords in Reviews
#18 36 total
Positive Sentiment in Reviews
#19 34 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Landing Page URL from Industry-Relevant Domains
#20 32 total
Diversity of Third-Party Sites on which Reviews are Present
#21 30 total
Volume of Quality Content on Entire Website
#22 30 total
High Numerical Ratings by Authority Reviewers (e.g.Yelp Elite, Google Local Guides, etc)
#23 29 total
Quantity of Citations from Industry-Relevant Domains
#24 29 total
High Numerical Ratings of Business by Google Users (e.g. 4–5)
#25 28 total
Presence of Business on Expert-Curated “Best of” and Similar Lists
#26 28 total
Topical (Product/Service) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#27 28 total
Location Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to Domain
#28 27 total
Product/Service Keyword in GMB Business Title
#29 27 total
Velocity of New Inbound Links to Domain
#30 24 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to GMB Landing Page URL
10 Factors Experts Are Focusing On More Since the Possum Update
#1 50 total
Proximity of Address to the Point of Search (Searcher-Business Distance)
#2 34 total
Proper GMB Category Associations
#3 20 total
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Domain
#4 20 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain from Locally Relevant Domains
#5 19 total
Click-Through Rate from Search Results
#6 17 total
Geographic (City/Neighborhood) Keyword Relevance of Domain Content
#7 13 total
Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain
#8 12 total
Velocity of Native Google Reviews
#9 11 total
Presence of Business on Expert-Curated “Best of” and Similar Lists
#10 11 total
Mobile-Friendly/Responsive Website
10 Factors Experts Are Focusing On Less Since the Possum Update
#1 70 total
Proximity of Address to Centroid
#2 48 total
Physical Address in City of Search
#3 39 total
Proximity of Address to Centroid of Other Businesses in Industry
#4 34 total
Quantity of Structured Citations (IYPs, Data Aggregators)
#5 33 total
Consistency of Citations on Tier 3 Citation Sources
#6 15 total
Enhancement/Completeness of Citations
#7 10 total
Velocity of Native Google Reviews
#8 9 total
Volume of Quality Content on Service Pages
#9 9 total
Authority/Quality of Engagement Metrics (+1's, comments, shares) on Google+
#10 8 total
Proximity of Address to the Point of Search (Searcher-Business Distance)
Negative Factors
#1 568 total
Listing Detected at False Business Address
#2 492 total
Incorrect Business Category
#3 480 total
Reports of Violations on Your GMB Listing
#4 455 total
Site Hacked/Presence of Malware
#5 422 total
Mismatch NAP/Tracking Phone Numbers Across Data Ecosystem
#6 410 total
Address is a PO Box, UPS Mail Store, or Other False Address
#7 407 total
Presence of Multiple GMB Listings in the Same Category with Same/Similar Business Title and Address
#8 357 total
GMB Listings with Same Address/Phone Marked as “Permanently Closed”
#9 347 total
Presence of Businesses in the Same Category at the Same Address
#10 319 total
Mismatch NAP/Tracking Phone Number on GMB Landing Page
#11 300 total
Mismatch Address on GMB Landing Page
#12 288 total
Association of GMB Account with Other Suppressed Listings
#13 270 total
Presence of Multiple GMB Listings with Same Phone Number
#14 254 total
Absence of Crawlable NAP on Website
#15 199 total
Incomplete/Missing Data on the Primary Data Sources
#16 196 total
Absence of Crawlable NAP on GMB Landing Page
#17 164 total
Incorrectly Placed Map Marker in GMB
#18 159 total
Choosing to Hide GMB Address
#19 157 total
Keyword Stuffing in Business Name
#20 156 total
Low Numerical Ratings of Google Reviews (e.g. 1–2)
#21 116 total
Choosing Service Area for Business in GMB (as opposed to in-location visits)
#22 109 total
Listing 800 Number as Only Phone Number in GMB
#23 105 total
Negative Sentiment in Google Reviews
#24 94 total
Keyword Stuffing in Title Tag of GMB Landing Page
#25 92 total
Presence of Multiple Crawlable NAP on GMB Landing Page
#26 91 total
No Hours of Operation on GMB Listing
#27 83 total
Category Dilution
#28 54 total
Reviews Copied from Third-Party Sites as Testimonials in Schema/JSON-LD on Website
#29 46 total
Low Numerical Ratings of Third-Party Reviews (e.g. 1–2)
#30 42 total
Receiving Too Many Google Reviews Too Fast
#31 41 total
Multi-Lingual GMB Listings for the Same Place
#32 38 total
Negative Sentiment in Third-Party Reviews
#33 23 total
Malformed Phone Number on Website (dots or spaces instead of dashes)
#34 15 total
Mismatched or Private WHOIS Information
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