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Local Search Ranking Factors 2011

by rbrShorty
24 replies
Hey guys,

Less than a couple of hours ago the 2011 edition of Local Search Ranking Factors (by David Mihm) was issued. This year the layout is a bit changed, because of the major changes that occurred in Google Places the last October. You can see the ranking factors here:

Local Search Ranking Factors | Local SEO Best Practices for Ranking in Google Places

Additionally, at the bottom you could see the top citation sources due to the contributors, as well as the top review sources.

This year's contributors list includes names such as:

Mike Blumenthal
David Mihm
Matt McGee
Andrew Shotland
Dev Basu
Chris Silver Smith
Aaron Weiche
Linda Buquet
Martijn Beijk
Mike Belasco
Steve Hatcher
Mike Ramsey
Jim Rudnick
Ed Reese
etc.

Basically all the gurus of local SEO and Google Places from all over the world. I'd suggest anyone who considers getting involved (or is already involved) in this particular field to read, print out, pin on their wall over their bed and under the glass on their desk all the tips on an A1 size paper.

Happy reading!
#2011 #factors #local #places #ranking #search
  • Profile picture of the author techlover
    Just took a list over the list, extremely helpful, thanks so much!
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    • Profile picture of the author Catalyst eMarketing
      Yes this is really a MUST read for anyone involved with local SEO and especially Google Places Optimization.

      A bunch of leading experts contributed, so the best minds in the biz all came together. I was honored to be added as a contributor this year and it was so interesting to see how David pulls all this data together.

      But it's a TON of info to get through, so set aside some time this weekend to analyze it all.
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  • Profile picture of the author chengwong
    David Mihm said it all, that was really great article, thanks for sharing the article and the list of SEOs as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author thesorcerersapprentice
    Thanks rbrShorty.... what an excellent resource.

    Thank you for sharing.

    Neil
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    • Profile picture of the author Mulrain
      What an interesting and great source of information. Thank you for sharing.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsherloc
    I've got my "nerd" cap on and am going through some of it some more. Very cool stuff!

    Links are still numero uno overall it appears...in one form or another.

    It is amazing to me that Google specifically does NOT want business owners to do certain things, but yet consistently rewards their competitors for doing the same things they warn against doing. As shady as the SEO industry clearly is, I leave some of the blame on Google too at this point.

    I mean, proximity to the center of the city and the whole "location in your biz name" thing are two examples where it really is just like..."WTF?". These have literally been HUGE aspects/issues/controversies/taboos of Places since it was rolled out...you would think they would be able to make them LESS effective, and thus deal with less customer frustration/condemnation in the long run.

    At least we have the insider knowledge of how some of this stuff truly works on an algorythmic level, but you just have to feel bad for the everyday business owner looking to tackle this stuff himself. He looks and wonders why the top 5 businesses in his niche all have executive suites/virtual offices in the center of town and realizes they are using "DBAs" with specific location/service keywords to dominate.

    Most "diy" and/or cash-strapped service providers just simply try to replicate what their competitors do marketing-wise without putting much thought into it in order to stay above water. That's why so many still pay for the phone book etc regardless of trackable ROI. Punishing business owners/your target market that is inherently ignorant to these types of technical matters is just kind of sad to me....I mean look at the Google help blogs some time if you want to get REALLY depressed.

    Ahh, yes my beloved "structured citation resources" made an appearance too! I have a love/hate relationship with them at this point...

    I know Google has its reasons for not introducing DRASTIC changes in the local front, but I'm not so sure anymore if gradually rolling out new stuff, rewarding some while simultaneously punishing others for the same type of stuff gets to be a bit draining. It should be a VERY interesting year in local. IMO Google has some serious reputation management of their own to do in this area in order to satisfy the growing wave of discontent...we're just starting to feel the ripple now. Get your surfboards out offliners....

    - Jim
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    • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
      Hey Jim,

      Yes, I also generally agree with the fact that the main fault about the proliferation of spam and black hat techniques is Google's. I have noted a few of the factors that are completely welcoming spam:

      1. Proximity of Address to Centroid - definitely #1 black hat factor, I mean how could that be a factor when most of the people wouldn't even live near the city center, therefore they would not need a service near there

      2. Product/Service Keyword in Business Title - and what if the business doesn't have it? They should go and die? Fortunately it is much less important in Blended Search

      3. Location Keyword in Business Title - this is even more ridiculous... I mean, OK, some plumber could name himself "Joe Plumbing", but why would he, for Christ's sake, name his business "Joe Plumbing Los Angeles"???

      4. Product/ Service Keyword in Reviews - well, I'd say IT IS very possible that some clients would write reviews including the service/product they got, but I don't believe that could be a factor

      5. Location Keyword in Reviews - that's funny again, who would write something like "Joe is the greatest plumber in Los Angeles, CA. As we live in bla bla suburb of Los Angeles we searched on Google for "plumber Los Angeles" and we found Joe Plumbing Los Angeles. He was great!" I'm not sure who would write such a review, but I see them all the time. Seems like people LOVE using location keywords in their comments

      Fortunately, all these have much lesser influence in the rankings of Blended Search (as agreed by all the specialists and me). I guess the best way to get rid of majority of black hats would be to roll the merged results for every local search.

      Anyway, as you mentioned citations, I think there are a few factors that are missing. I asked David Mihm why and he said that most of them were mentioned "using slightly different terms" in the 79 factors (I couldn't find exactly where they were mentioned, but if someone could I'd be glad to hear comments):

      - consistency of NAP (name, address, phone) - probably one of the top 5 factors especially in the "pure" results
      - diversity of citation domains
      - diversity of review domains
      - quality of inbound links to citations
      - location keyword/address in citation URL
      - product/service keyword in citation URL
      - business name as appearing on Place page in citation URL
      - title tag of landing page specified in Places
      - click-through rate
      - meta description of landing page specified in Places - minor importance, but probably higher value than most of the factors after position 70

      Cheers,
      Nyagoslav
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      • Profile picture of the author thesorcerersapprentice
        Originally Posted by rbrShorty View Post

        Hey Jim,


        - consistency of NAP (name, address, phone) - probably one of the top 5 factors especially in the "pure" results
        - diversity of citation domains
        - diversity of review domains
        - quality of inbound links to citations
        - location keyword/address in citation URL
        - product/service keyword in citation URL
        - business name as appearing on Place page in citation URL
        - title tag of landing page specified in Places
        - click-through rate
        - meta description of landing page specified in Places - minor importance, but probably higher value than most of the factors after position 70

        Cheers,
        Nyagoslav
        Hi Nyagolslav

        It is very useful that you have summarised this information which I think will be a big help to a lot of people. A question I have though is how do you get your citations indexed? I have a client in a pretty competitive niche and the citations were the first thing I looked at when I took him on about 2 months ago.

        I listed his business at all the usual citation sites for the UK (Yelp,Qype, Bing, etc etc) but none of them have appeared yet and the page wont seem to move above page 6 no matter what I do. I have tried pinging the actual citation pages but this doesn't seem to make any difference either.

        Do you know a way to get citations indexed quicker?

        Many thanks

        Neil
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        • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
          Originally Posted by thesorcerersapprentice View Post

          Hi Nyagolslav

          It is very useful that you have summarised this information which I think will be a big help to a lot of people. A question I have though is how do you get your citations indexed? I have a client in a pretty competitive niche and the citations were the first thing I looked at when I took him on about 2 months ago.

          I listed his business at all the usual citation sites for the UK (Yelp,Qype, Bing, etc etc) but none of them have appeared yet and the page wont seem to move above page 6 no matter what I do. I have tried pinging the actual citation pages but this doesn't seem to make any difference either.

          Do you know a way to get citations indexed quicker?

          Many thanks

          Neil
          OK, probably that's some kind of myth that needs to be dispelled. Google does index the citations on the directories that you mentioned. In fact, a listing created on Yelp gets indexed in less than 24 hours normally (sometimes even faster). Reviews on Yelp, CitySearch, or QYPE, get indexed in less than 1 hour in many cases. However, it's a completely different topic when Google will associate them with the particular Place page. It takes time as the thing with citations is not the same as with backlinks. They don't appear at any point of time. If you are managing numerous Place pages as I do, you would very soon notice that the process is periodical and usually citations from the same directory appear at the same time, no matter if you have created them 40 days or 1 week ago.

          Another thing - if you list your client's business on only the most popular directories, don't you think your competitors would have already done that as well? You will have to think in a more unorthodox way in order to get the advantage. Moreover, in the O-pack citations have much lesser value compared to the website factors like backlinks, on-site SEO, etc. Especially in the UK market, I've noticed that the "blended" results are very widespread, so probably you would have to strengthen the website SEO instead of putting effort on the citations.

          Many say that building backlinks to the citations would help, and I also do believe so, although there are no concrete proofs + I don't really know how you could build legit, natural backlinks to a listing on QYPE, for example.

          My 2 cents (I learned this collocation since I started attending this forum lol).
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          • Profile picture of the author thesorcerersapprentice
            Your 2 Cents very much appreciated Nyagoslav.

            What I don't understand though is that I have done all the on-site stuff and building backlinks and the website itself ranks on the first page but the places listing wont seem to move.

            I did notice in the report though that PR seems to be quite an important factor. My client's site is PR0 whereas some of the competitors are PR2 and 3 because they are far more established sites and brands even to the extent that the B position is occupied by a site that hasn't even been claimed and has only 2 reviews! Surely though there must be a way to overcome this?
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            • Profile picture of the author thriftgirl62
              Originally Posted by thesorcerersapprentice View Post

              Your 2 Cents very much appreciated Nyagoslav.

              What I don't understand though is that I have done all the on-site stuff and building backlinks and the website itself ranks on the first page but the places listing wont seem to move.

              I did notice in the report though that PR seems to be quite an important factor. My client's site is PR0 whereas some of the competitors are PR2 and 3 because they are far more established sites and brands even to the extent that the B position is occupied by a site that hasn't even been claimed and has only 2 reviews! Surely though there must be a way to overcome this?
              There is. CONVERSIONS. Regular, steady traffic that finds something to download or products to buy. Money = Result. That means happy searchers are finding what they want on your site. Google sends you more targeted traffic = Result Page Rank goes up = Result

              Your activity says I want Page ONE, high PR and traffic to make money and I don't care where it comes from, Google, just send me traffic because I build links and my keywords are nicely arranged on my homepage. But none of that will last without conversions and steady traffic.

              Did you know you're not even supposed to allow your site to be indexed by Google until it has at least 30 pages of real content first and NOT with any ugly adsense ads? If you index too soon, you're stuck at the bottom of the ladder instead of starting closer to the top.

              I know. I've done it. No back link builders or artificial anything. Rocket your site to PR3 so fast you'll miss the PR1 and next thing you know it's a PR3 and that's the hump that requires interactive content and traffic conversions like this $1.1MIL PR8 Blog: Boing Boing another one you can link to so you look less like a gold digger: Bravenet - Web Hosting, Free Web Hosting and Web Tools another PR8
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              • Profile picture of the author thesorcerersapprentice
                Originally Posted by thriftgirl62 View Post

                There is. CONVERSIONS. Regular, steady traffic that finds something to download or products to buy. Money = Result. That means happy searchers are finding what they want on your site. Google sends you more targeted traffic = Result Page Rank goes up = Result

                Your activity says I want Page ONE, high PR and traffic to make money and I don't care where it comes from, Google, just send me traffic because I build links and my keywords are nicely arranged on my homepage. But none of that will last without conversions and steady traffic.

                Did you know you're not even supposed to allow your site to be indexed by Google until it has at least 30 pages of real content first and NOT with any ugly adsense ads? If you index too soon, you're stuck at the bottom of the ladder instead of starting closer to the top.

                I know. I've done it. No back link builders or artificial anything. Rocket your site to PR3 so fast you'll miss the PR1 and next thing you know it's a PR3 and that's the hump that requires interactive content and traffic conversions like this $1.1MIL PR8 Blog: Boing Boing another one you can link to so you look less like a gold digger: Bravenet - Web Hosting, Free Web Hosting and Web Tools another PR8
                An interesting perspective but the point here is that the site is for a bricks and mortar business so the whole point of the site is to get people to pick up the phone and make appointments. That is how my client measures success/conversions. There is nothing to buy on the site per se. Granted I could have a fact sheet/voucher to download which is something I have done to good effect.

                I would be surprised though if even 1% of businesses on Page 1 and showing in the 7 pack (because that was the point of the discussio) have 30 pages of real content.
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                • Profile picture of the author thriftgirl62
                  Originally Posted by thesorcerersapprentice View Post

                  An interesting perspective but the point here is that the site is for a bricks and mortar business so the whole point of the site is to get people to pick up the phone and make appointments. That is how my client measures success/conversions. There is nothing to buy on the site per se. Granted I could have a fact sheet/voucher to download which is something I have done to good effect.

                  I would be surprised though if even 1% of businesses on Page 1 and showing in the 7 pack (because that was the point of the discussio) have 30 pages of real content.
                  People in general, go searching for information before they decide to buy something. Wouldn't it make sense to load your site up with great information and links to helpful content on say, a sister site? Those links count too as long as the information is relevant, your own sites are just as good as someone else's.

                  Local reviews would help a lot. And if only 1% have 30 pages of content, seems to me that's a good way to blow them all out of the water. Think of it like this: Selling locally while competing globally. I guess it depends on the local business whether any of that makes sense or not. But stacking all the chips in your favor is never a bad idea either.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Tracy411
                    What a great share! Thanks for sharing this information, rbrShorty
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  • Profile picture of the author Genesis1
    that was really cool and helpful,
    great lists of sources
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce NewMedia
    I would say that is quite a thorough list. Thanks.....agree that some of G's factors don't make sense to me either. Some seem to invite 'gaming' of their system.

    On #5: "Make sure Google can associate your website and your Places page together".

    Ok, so I have a link on every client's site that goes to the Places Page....is that sufficient?
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  • Profile picture of the author Russell Hall
    This is a very worthwhile list. It's kind of a jaw dropper and a bit intimidating when you look at all the parameters and realize just how in depth you could go if you chose to.

    I doubt that we'll be going all out to check all those boxes on the list but one thing we have started doing is to include hCard details on all our local sites (like a vCard data input containing all the major business detail identifiers). One of our associate/members pointed this out to us recently and I'm really glad we've now included it and hard coded it seamlessly into the footer of every page and on the contact page. Go check it out here and hover over the footer link that says "hCard".

    Great share,... thanks!

    Russell Hall
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    • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
      Originally Posted by thesorcerersapprentice View Post

      What I don't understand though is that I have done all the on-site stuff and building backlinks and the website itself ranks on the first page but the places listing wont seem to move.

      I did notice in the report though that PR seems to be quite an important factor. My client's site is PR0 whereas some of the competitors are PR2 and 3 because they are far more established sites and brands even to the extent that the B position is occupied by a site that hasn't even been claimed and has only 2 reviews! Surely though there must be a way to overcome this?
      It's really hard to comment without having the particular case in front of me.

      Originally Posted by brucerby View Post

      On #5: "Make sure Google can associate your website and your Places page together".

      Ok, so I have a link on every client's site that goes to the Places Page....is that sufficient?
      A link would not really make things easier. What would help is, as Russell stated, hCard coding the business name, address and phone number in the footer. Also use them in the H1 tag of the landing page if possible + in the content. In the contact us page embed the map and list the name, address and phone number again as they appear on Google Places.

      Originally Posted by Russell Hall View Post

      This is a very worthwhile list. It's kind of a jaw dropper and a bit intimidating when you look at all the parameters and realize just how in depth you could go if you chose to.

      I doubt that we'll be going all out to check all those boxes on the list but one thing we have started doing is to include hCard details on all our local sites (like a vCard data input containing all the major business detail identifiers). One of our associate/members pointed this out to us recently and I'm really glad we've now included it and hard coded it seamlessly into the footer of every page and on the contact page. Go check it out here and hover over the footer link that says "hCard".

      Great share,... thanks!

      Russell Hall
      Maybe you'd be interested in that (if you haven't heard yet):
      schema.org - Home

      That's why a couple of hours after the LSRF 2011 was released I wrote on twitter if the contributors would reconsider their order of rankings having in mind the "schema" of Google, Bing and Yahoo, which was presented officially just one day before the issuing of the LSRF, and AFTER the contributors had sent their answers to David Mihm.
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  • Profile picture of the author mcconnon12
    This is a very good resource and I like the fact that David uses so many different resources or professionals for diverse views.
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  • Profile picture of the author Charles Harper
    Thanks for the share. Love the report although I would much rather see them (and us) go head to head in the same niche and city.

    CT
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    • Profile picture of the author blissk
      Awesome info. Thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author jsherloc
      Originally Posted by Charles Harper View Post

      Thanks for the share. Love the report although I would much rather see them (and us) go head to head in the same niche and city.

      CT
      At least people "at the top" are FINALLY recognizing and emphasizing and ADMITTING the power of inbound geo-anchor LINKS in local search. To me that is a step in the right direction, and I didn't know if I'd ever hear it from a lot of the "local search authority" blogs, for fear of being labeled wild blackhatter's and being put in a corner by Mr. Cutts or something lol...

      - Jim
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      • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
        rbrsorty said,

        5. Location Keyword in Reviews - that's funny again, who would write something like "Joe is the greatest plumber in Los Angeles, CA. As we live in bla bla suburb of Los Angeles we searched on Google for "plumber Los Angeles" and we found Joe Plumbing Los Angeles. He was great!" I'm not sure who would write such a review, but I see them all the time. Seems like people LOVE using location keywords in their comments
        I have a fake listing I use for testing purposes and the funny thing is that Google picked up an story from the New York Times published back in the 90's believe it or not.

        The title of the story is an exact match to my listings title but it has nothing to do with the listing obviously, yet Google is viewing it as a review on my listing.

        This "review" once it appeared on my listing it shot to number 1 overnight. My listing continued to remain in the number 1 spot for a month. Then one day the New York times review vanished and the listing settle back to its previous position. Then the review returned and the listing was back at the A spot on page one.

        In my opinion the story title and the sites authority is the only factor involved in my listing being at number 1. The funny thing is that the story was syndicated long before Google was thinking about local and is way older then my listing and site. Its not even a real review but Google seems to think so. haha

        I firmly believe that the single most important factors in doing it right when your dealing with Google Places is consistency in your citations.

        Consistency builds trust and authority. If your information is the EXACT same in all your citations/directory listings and you keep it that way Google is going to begin to trust that the business is legit and stable.
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        • Profile picture of the author yourdogguy
          Question about utilizing Hcards.

          I understand that location information should be displayed on the footers of all the website pages using the Hcard format.

          When A business has 2 or more places pages associated with it because of additional locations what is the best way to include the additional addresses
          using the Hcard?
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