There is a sea change in local searches as a result of Google Maps

[earlpearl]

Google recently prominently inserted an expanded Onebox map with various businesses for that search query at the top of the page.

Do a long tail search for a business in a city or town; such as Divorce Attorney Philadelphia (hypothetical category) and often a onebox map with several links to prominent listings will show.

The most prominant listings are primarily or thoroughly pulled from Google Maps (formerly Google Local). The rankings(serps) of businesses within Google maps is dramatically different than that of organic search.


The onebox map, with up to 3 businesses takes up a significant amount of the search page, virtually all the great search page real estate at the top and accordingly pushes the organic search down on the page.

Recently, G had inserted either a onebox listing of up to 3 businesses within organic search or a single business w/a map at the top of an organic search. Now the map is most prevalent, w/the listing of up to 3 businesses. It is dramatically different than all previous methods to respond to long tail G searches.

It is a killer application.

It appears that google maps algos have been undergoing significant changes over the past several months...and frankly I can't figure them out at this point. In fact there could be several methods being currently used.

Mike Blumenthal, who is a member here, and has a blog that directly addresses the google maps phenomena blumenthals.com/blog has been addressing google maps for some time.

Bill Slawski (also a member) at seobythesea.com has written about G's patents for google maps. Both have been addressing the significant changes.

In any case the maps inclusion makes for dramatic changes. I'm actually looking for help on the maps algos. I'm not sure there is a fix on this. In December, prior to this dramatic change showing on organic search, I saw my business ranking on g maps change from virtually first to 3-8th in a matter of weeks and change again for the better.

It would be helpful to see if people are seeing impacts and can note trends with regard to G maps algos at this point.

One interesting side comment was made by Mike and brought comment by Bill as to differences between the onebox rankings and the maps rankings. Similarly Bill has noted different impacts in G maps by using different phrases
for potentially the same concept. Searching for new cars in a city versus searching for automobiles within a city. (Is that correct, Bill).

The changes are dramatic.

All comments and observations appreciated.

Dave

[skitzzo]

The changes certainly are dramatic and there have been several very good blog posts about the effects. Basically I've seen many people saying that if you haven't been paying attention to local search, you better get your butt in gear now because as personalized search continues to be shoved down our throats, it will become more and more important. I'd say you're probably well ahead of the game EP, and I thank you for all the attention to bring to local search.

[earlpearl]

With the new way G is doing things I'm no longer ahead of the curve for a lot of terms.

But then again nobody might be since G maps serps have been changing frequently.

Bill Slawski and Mike Blumenthal have been studying this stuff and probably have as good fix on this as anyone.

It would be helpful to get a grasp on this stuff. Its very different and VERY EFFECTIVE for anyone who masters it.

[Bill]

Similarly Bill has noted different impacts in G maps by using different phrases for potentially the same concept. Searching for new cars in a city versus searching for automobiles within a city. (Is that correct, Bill).

You're right, Dave. Different queries can show different sized territories. It's hard to tell exactly how they may have derived some of those. But, think of it this way - someone searching for pizza probably wants a location close to them. Someone searching for an automobile might be willing to drive 30 miles.

However, when I did a search for "automobiles" in local, the scale of the map displayed was pretty large (2 miles = 1 inch). When I tried a search for "car dealers" in the same location, it showed a much smaller scaled map (2000 ft = 1 inch).

There are a lot of other things to watch out for in the way that Google Local works, but I think that this one displays an interesting aspect of knowing what you might show up for in maps when you put keywords on your pages.

[earlpearl]

Back in December and before then, Gmaps was showing distance from a town central point.

At times they ranked sites with this aspect taking precedence

They are no longer showing distance from a central town location.

I'm seeing some rankings by alpha category as in a phone book. In other cases I'm not.

Some highly ranked sites are or have been out of business for years. Some don't have any or even the most minute amount of references, ratings, etc. Some don't have websites but are out of directories.

I'm wondering if G maps has deals with directories. I'm going to back and check some of the business deals. Could paying a certain directory push the site up in G maps?

also I saw one site ranking high w/ relatively few references but with a g coupon. could that have an impact?

[skitzzo]

I've noticed the differing distances thing as well. I figured it was due to the fact that I was searching for a service in a small suburb and got results mostly for St. Louis, the much larger neighboring city.

Think Google's still got a long way to go to perfecting this type of search and frankly it's only served to annoy me (both as a surfer and as an SEO).

Also, do you guys think this will marginalize sites that cater to the entire country/world? I mean it's not like it would be practical for us (SEOrefugee) to start trying to rank for SEO St. Louis, Washington DC SEO, etc etc...

[earlpearl]

skitzz: It shouldn't affect the site at all for that type of effort.

One other thing I noticed is that this enlarged maps insertion into organic serps seems to be a moving target.

For one critical business phrase for my business the maps insertion was showing last week and isn't showing today.

Per previous comments with regard to this issue made at seobythesea...I had noted that one google spokesperson had referenced the importance of the onebox and extended usage of it based upon clicktrhoughs. I wonder if this was why this was showing last week and not this week.

I think this thing is a moving target right now w/different applications of G maps algos being inserted into G rather quickly.

[Robert Paulson]

The thing I've noticed for awhile, and I can't say that it makes a ton of sense to me (maybe someone else can make sense of it), is in Maps, when there are maybe 50 companies serving a particular industry in a particular city (say plumbers in Springfield), the results on a single page are not grouped alphabetically nor by distance from a central location. If I continue to page through the Maps results, each set of pushpins looks like a shotgun pattern.

I know - that's not the organic serps. Just something I thought was odd and can't understand. Maybe they are ranked just as the organic serps are.

The source of major frustration for me is our B&M business is not in the city where the most work is available. But I can literally throw a stone from our B&M into that city. We're talking 30 feet. But because we're in a neighboring city, we are nowhere to be found in the onebox. It's a damn shame, because we've been #1 for awhile in the organic results for the city we want to rank for. And we're doing PPC as well. But we're not in the onebox.

We have some rental property in that city, and while it'd be a bit of a fib, I'm considering changing our local listing and website to reflect that, just to get in the onebox.

Another idea - get a PO Box in the city, so we can legitimately be "located" there.

Any thoughts or other ideas about how a business in a neighboring city can get into the onebox for the "better" city?

[earlpearl]

RP:

I believe this thing is in flux right now RP. A few weeks ago I would have 100% done what you are suggesting...and in fact we were searching for either a PO box or small office to set up a makeshift temp operation just to do that in our major city....but G has changed things.

I don't have a good read on the G maps algo...but I don't think anyone has. It seems to be shifting. I've gone over it w/ Bill Slawski earlier and Mike Blumenthal has been reviewing it closely for some time.

Its very powerful now though as the expanded maps presentation w/in G serps takes up a lot of valuable serps real estate on the first page and drives organic serps down.

It would be positive to get a read and understanding on it from different people. I looked at your placement vis a vis a search query and I can see how it isn't working for you now for some terms.

Last week it killed us for a valuable phrase and variations on that phrase and this week the map isn't showing.

I gotta think this thing will settle down at some point...but right now that idea might not work.

On the other hand, I've seen that very idea posed by some smart people...so even if it doesn't work now...it might be a killer idea for the future if G maps' algo's settle into a format that the particular town address becomes vital.

(still looking for other experience on this from others...... )

[mblumenthal]

I think it is important that when analyzing Google Maps results we understand that there are two sets of rules.

1- the algorithms that are used inside of the Maps product

2-The local onebox results that show up in the SERP

The algorithms that are used inside of the Maps product seem to be fairly stable. Of necessity they use multiple factors in their ranking:
City of Business
Verified Entry (by whatever source not qt of sources)
Authoritative Page Page Rank
Number of Web Links and Page Rank of those link
Number of Reviews (not quality)

The reason that they use all of these is that in any given industry/market they may not have one or the other of these attributes.

In the onebox results, that is in flux but there appears to be currently only 2 algos...one, that emulates the Maps order and another that seems to use quality & relevance instead.

I think if you look that the data that I started developing here: http://blumenthals.com/blog/?p=63
and then match that up against Bill's patent summary here: http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=294

you will get a pretty good picture of how Google Maps is working.

Mike Blumenthal