Local Ranking Factors?
-
For Google, has anyone got a finger on how much of a factor the address type "service customers only at their location" versus "service customers at my business location AND customers location is" is as far as local search ranking especially for 3-pack results? (The former they hide the address the latter they show the street address) It seems to me the primary factors are obviously (a) proximity of user's location or location intent to the business location, then (b) natural organic ranking (age of business, domain authority, inbound links, quality content, relevance to the actual keywords searched for). But where does the address type rank amongst all the "secondary factors" like is business currently open, number of reviews and average rating, etc. etc. My guess would be reviews and average rating along with is business currently open would be third, and then address type would factor in - but for all I know the address type could be given much more importance than I am guessing?
-
Hi MrSem,
By open/closed for business do you mean a permanently closed business, or something you look up when it's after hours for a business? Any further details?
BTW, I mentioned I would have more coming soon on this topic of SAB challenges. Just published: https://moz.com/blog/sabs-decreased-local-search-visibility
-
Excellent insight Miriam which basically is confirming what my gut was. As you point out though, it really depends on how competitive the local pack is. But that's why I say "all other things being equal". I think it's safe to say if the competitor is the same proximity, reviews and ratings are equal and all other on-page and off-page seo signals total up to being equal, the business with the visible street address wins the tie and even beats other businesses with some better ranking factors in other areas but probably not many or very significant ones.
An interesting test would be, street address shown, versus currently open/closed for business. Which between those two do you think carries more weight?
-
Hi MrSem,
Awesome topic, and coincidentally, something I've been thinking about quite recently. Local Search Ranking Factors 2017 continues to cite hiding your address as a negative factor: it's #18 of the negative ranking factors section of the survey. There was a time in which it was extremely evident that hiding the address was dinging businesses (I'm thinking back to about 2010). Since then, I've personally felt that Google dialed this factor back, but the fact that some of my colleagues are still seeing enough negative impact from this for it to make it into the LSRF survey makes me suppose they are seeing things more frequently than I am. I can't assign an exact degree of negativity to this factor. In fact, it might vary from pack-to-pack, depending on the strength of the players.
Now, here's another twist to this. Hidden addresses are quickly become a really severe liability in a whole new way. When Google's Home Service Ads come to town, claimed listings for SABs who are complying with Google's hide-address guidelines appear to be gone from the local packs/local finders. Joy Hawkins has some examples of this here: https://whitespark.ca/blog/is-google-going-to-remove-3packs/ and I plan to write more on this topic soon. If you or your clients are being impacted by this artefact of the HSA program, I recommend watching Mike Blumenthal and Mary Bowling discussing this here: http://localu.org/blog/changing-landscape-for-service-area-businesses-sabs/
So, at this point, yes, I've got to declare hiding the address to be a behavior that can negatively impact service area businesses in a variety of ways, and it's quite difficult that compliance with Google's guidelines could appear to "punish" these business models, but that's about where we're at right now.
Hope my reply, and some of the resources I've linked to, help. And I hope our community will chime in with their opinions. I truly believe this topic deserves much discussion!
-
Hi Mrsem,
I imagine the address type isn´t a factor for local pack rankings because either one goes to local relevance and i cant see how one would be more relevant over the other. Say i am looking for a hairdresser, google shows a local pack with hairdressers in the area they identified i am searching from why would a business that "service customers only at their location" be more locally relevant than "service customers at my business location And customers location".just a different kind of service. No statistical data to back this up though. Will be interesting to hear other opinions on this.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is Local Search Data Included in Google Search Console?
Is local search data Included in Google Search Console? Or is it only in Google My Business? I'm having a hard time distinguishing what exactly is included in Google Search Console's reporting.
Local Listings | | DigitalMarketingSEO1 -
Accurate Rank Checking for Local SEO
Hi all, I am wondering if anyone out there has cracked the enigma of figuring out how to accurately find local rankings for multi-location businesses. I do understand that "accuracy" should be used loosely given the numerous factors that come into play for local such as distance from searcher and business location being located directly in the city of the search. So I definitely get that nothing will be entirely accurate but the programs I have used and the incognito browser approach just seems so far off. Moz tells me something different than the Google Adword Preview Tool which is different than SEMRush which is different than serps.com and so on. I have done the appending to search strings with near=city as well. I unfortunately do not trust any of them at this point. I would LOVE if my company flew me out to every single city we are in so I could do local searches but that is probably not going to happen 🙂 Any thoughts or recommendations for how I can get the most accurate local rank, even if it is an incredibly manual process? Is there an easy way for me to change my location anymore since Google stripped that option away awhile back? That was the ONLY time I felt I was getting somewhat accurate results. Thanks! -Ben
Local Listings | | Davey_Tree1 -
How to perform a search as though you are in a local city
Hi community. So I live in Dubai but have a lot of clients in the UK that want local SEO. Does anyone have any tips on performing search queries in Google that reflect a true search results page as though that search was being performed in a chosen UK city? say if I wanted to see the SERPs for "hairdressers" in the city of Bristol in the UK, at the moment I get a pretty vague UK SERP from With lots of Dubai based adverts et. Any tips would be great, thanks
Local Listings | | SeoSheikh0 -
LOCAL CITATIONS - SHARED ADDRESS, DIFFERENT BUSINESS ENTITIES, DIFFERENT PRACTICTIONERS
I am trying to to boost my clients online presence through Local Business Listings but am running into a few issues that I would like to get some feedback on. First, I will provide some background information and then provide my questions that I am seeking feedback on! Your help is greatly appreciated. **BACKGROUND INFO: ** Client has little online visibility and is looking to optimize his Local Business Listings to boost his online presence. Client is a Chiropractor that just registered his own business, has a unique local phone number, his own website. The facility that the Chiropractor works out of is a shared office space, known as a "Wellness Center" This facility has other chiropractors, doctors, & massage therapists who fit the same criteria as my client. I understand that in order to qualify for a local business listings your business must meet **CRITERIA. **This is the only one he does not meet, but the way the businesses are ran, it seems like to me that he should be eligible for local business listings. Have a dedicated physical street address (not a shared address, PO box, or virtual office) I don't understand why a shared address isn't allowed. This seems pretty legit to me. And is similar to a Doctors Office with multi-practitioners but slightly different because they each have their own business not all working for one business owner. All working for themselves. Everyone recently moved and joined this wellness center. Everyone generates their own leads and clientele. One thing to note is that no other business in the wellness center currently has optimized their online presence using this address. But address is present on other business owners websites. If my client uses this address and builds his local listings, is there a chance he can get penalized if the other business owners build their business listings on sites like, yelp, yellowpages, google maps, citysearch, etc. What are the chances of him getting penalized/the entire shared office being penalized due to this shared office space. Your feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank You
Local Listings | | InternetRep0 -
Google + / Local for Business. How to SEO ?... Done the basic but no real change.
Hi All, We have set up all of our Google local for business pages which are verified and these link to the relevant branch pages on our website. The branch pages also link back to the relevant google local page. We only appear for one category on the google local pages and we have also done a large number of citations (NAP) across all locations and the text used in each of the google pages is keyword rich and we mention the city in there as well to localise it. We have a few google + likes and we have used hootsuite to publish the same content across some of the google local pages which links back to our website blog , we are not appearing in local search whereas our competitors seem to be appear for all their branches. Is there any fundamental tips or things we need to do to def. get up on the rankings.. Or any good articles worth reading ?.. I've had a look but can't seem to see anything relating a google local business bible.. thanks Pete
Local Listings | | PeteC121 -
Creating a new Google local business page vs. adding additional locations to an existing Google business page?
We are a service company that both travels to customer locations and serves customers at our business location. The split is about 80/20 (travel vs. serve customers on location). We just opened up a new office in a city about 1 hour away from our main location. The question is, should we create a new business page and account on Google local or should we add the new location to our existing google local account? The new location has a separate website, phone number, email etc. My inclination is to create a new local business account/page on Google. Has anyone experimented with both solutions and tested which option creates more powerful local signals for ranking?
Local Listings | | Vspeed0 -
Correlation between ranking on Google organic result page and ranking on the local listing
Hi Moz fans, A quick question: any correlation between ranking on Google organic result page and ranking on the local listing or vise versa? Thnx Saab
Local Listings | | S.Saab0 -
Moz Local
Is there anything similar to Moz Local in London, UK? I need to run citations for 2 local businesses 'but' and want to use 'trusted' platforms. Please share you experiences and how this has helped your clients. Thank you Gary Victory
Local Listings | | GaryVictory1