Comments on: Local Search Ranking Factor Statistical Research

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:22:58 +0000

Curious, I’ve not found away to get Maps to keep both the singular & plural version of a keyword. It always filters out one of them.

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:03:00 +0000

Recently got a site reranked to #1 in G maps for the singular versions of the business phrase…but it is stuck at #2 for the plural. This applies to maps w/ both the city name…and without a geo reference and a map is inserted in organic results.

Such subtle differences with so much need for attention to detail.

By: Will Reinhardt

Will Reinhardt — Sun, 17 May 2009 01:35:14 +0000

I love it when science and SEO merge into a single element. A great article, and I look forward to the follow-up!

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 17 May 2009 00:17:01 +0000

And then there’s the odd attribute that sometimes you only 2 to 6 results on Google Web local search while there additional results. No doubt they’ve deliberately made this hard to game!

By: Brian Carter

Brian Carter — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:59:35 +0000

Agreed- web 10 pack is more important. But for comparing data about the 11-20 that didn’t make it, have to go to maps.google.com.

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:42:15 +0000

Fascinating, I just observed that, Thanx! And the results in Google Web are more than just the 10 pack from Google Maps reorganized. While the algorithm for Google Maps would be good to know, I think the Google Web 10 pack is the most valuable to decipher.

By: Brian Carter

Brian Carter — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:16:28 +0000

Actually I just reviewed this- I have seen some volatility, but that’s not to be confused with the fact that for some reason, the top ten local are different in “Web” than they are in “Maps”. Go figure.

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:11:27 +0000

To make it all the more confusing, I’ve seen the raking change in successive searches. Not sure if it’s the personalized search heuristic or a touch of randomness thrown iinto the mix.

By: Brian Carter

Brian Carter — Sat, 16 May 2009 22:06:13 +0000

Thanks Rich. I looked at more data points today, and still, almost any single factor appears to have a weak correlation.

However, I think this makes sense when an algorithm is a weighted multi-factor ranking… maybe it’s ok that they’re all weak alone- and it does help us prioritize what to work on first.

I’m going to keep looking at the data. Found a few interesting things about keyword in LBL name and category that I’ll publish soon.

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:27:28 +0000

Brian,

Excellent work, I was getting really annoyed with the anecdotal evidence from the “experts” and what they “believe” impacts the ranking. Your analysis here correlates with my own anaylsis. No clear a clear factor is not presenting itself. I intend to look deeper at factors such as whether the listing has been claimed by the business and the PR (authority) of the sites that reference the business as well as the age of the business llisting (working on how to measure this one). Anyway, looking forward to your follow-up report, keep up thegreat work..