local search ranking factors

Local Pack/Finder Ranking Factors

1. My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 19%
2. Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 17%
3. On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 14%
4. Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 13%
5. Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 13%
6. Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 10%
7. Personalization  10%
8. Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%

Localized Organic Ranking Factors

1. Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 29%
2. On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 24%
3. Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 11%
4. Personalization  9%
5. Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 8%
6. My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 7%
7. Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 7%
8. Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%

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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:

1. Google Search (knowledge panel) (example)
2. Google Maps (example)
3. Google+ (example)

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

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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