This document discusses 7 factors that can affect a local business's algorithmic rankings but do not impact organic rankings. These factors include proximity to searchers, rank tracking over time, landing pages for Google Business Profile (GMB) listings, reviews, filtering of similar listings, keyword stuffing in GMB names, and fake listings. The document provides examples and recommendations for optimizing each factor, such as testing linking GMB listings to homepages, using review solicitation tools carefully, and reporting fake listings to Google. It also notes that new listings do not necessarily rank highly or quickly and shares statistics on Google's removal of fake listings.

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7
Factors that Affect
Local Algorithm
That Don’t Impact
ORGANIC

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Organic
Local

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“
We found that only 8% of
our local pack results had
a website that searchers
could access from the
SERP itself.
https://moz.com/white-papers/distance-intent-local-pack

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“
Of that 8%, only 12%
had an organic rank
in the top 20.
https://moz.com/white-papers/distance-intent-local-pack

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
1.Proximity
2.Rank Tracking
3.GMB Landing Page
4.Reviews
5.The Filter
6.Keyword Stuffing
7.Fake Listings

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Proximity
1

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”

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#1
Proximity to Searcher

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
One Keyword 138 Zip Codes
82 Different Law Firms
http://bit.ly/mozcon1

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
77006

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0.5MilesAway

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Our Place
#27
Proximity to Searcher

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
Organic Rankings for “Personal Injury
Lawyer” and “Personal Injury Lawyer
Toronto” Across 72 Postal Codes
http://bit.ly/mozcon2

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Organic Local

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90% of his traffic
for this keyword
is from Organic.

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
GMB Leads Organic Leads
Private
Investigator
166 85
Insurance Agent 296 44
Dentist 104 27
Leads by Month

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Use UTM Codes
in Google My
Business.
http://bit.ly/mozcon4
To-Do

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Rank Tracking
2

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
http://bit.ly/mozcon6

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In Local,
anything below
position 5 is
choppy.

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
June 24June 11June 6

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
June 5 June 24June 15

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
June 8 June 14 June 24

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”

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Don’t Send
Ranking Reports
to Clients.
To-Do

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Track calls from
Google My
Business.
http://bit.ly/mozcon3
To-Do

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GMB Landing Page
3

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https://attorneyguss.com

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https://attorneyguss.com/tx/dallas/

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Location Page Homepage
Relevance Prominence
● content
● meta tags
● citations
● authority
● links

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Relevance Prominence

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Dallas
Changed to Homepage

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New Orleans
Changed to Homepage

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
Winner!
Prominence

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Test linking
GMB listings to
the homepage.
To-Do

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Reviews
4

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Reviews
account for
15.44% of how
Google ranks a
local business

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Are you
happy
with our
service? Private
Feedback
Form
Leave us a
Google
Review!

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http://bit.ly/mozcon5

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738
12
Lost 700+ Reviews

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Use a tool that
doesn’t violate
Google’s review
guidelines.
To-Do

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March 23 April 17 May 31 June 2
Dropped 1

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Drops in CTR
over time would
lower ranking.

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
Reviews removed
for violations are
not removed, they
are hidden.

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What if the
removed reviews
are negative?

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15 negative
reviews related to
press coverage.

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
#3
N/A

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Ranking is based
on a lot more
than who has the
best reviews.

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”

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The Filter
5

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https://moz.com/blog/what
-brands-need-know-about-
googles-filter
In Organic,
Google filters
duplicate
content.

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When listings are
very close together
and are in the same
industry, Google
can pick the
stronger of the 2
and filter the other.
The Possum Filter

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”

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2 realtors
ranking
3 are filtered

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”

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Keywords in the
Business Name
(AKA “Keyword Stuffing”)6

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Our Place
#4
Keywords in GMB Name

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How much does
keyword stuffing
impact ranking?

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
Removed
Keywords
Added
Keywords
Added
Keywords

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Violating guidelines
can result in Google
removing your listing.

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Our Place
http://bit.ly/mozcon7
Huge uptick in Google
My Business listing
suspensions as of
June.

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
https://support.google.com/busines
s/contact/business_redressal_form
To-Do

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Fake Listings
7

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#3
#11 #3

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-maps-littered-with-fake-
business-listings-harming-consumers-and-competitors-
11561042283

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$100 per
fake listing

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3800 fake
listings per
day

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New listings
won’t rank
anywhere right?

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“
Only 5.7% of all newly
published pages will
get to Google Top 10
within a year.
https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank/

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Less than
1 day

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Google removed
3 million listings
in 2018
https://www.blog.google/products/maps/how-we-fight-fake-
business-profiles-google-maps/

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A 50% increase
since 2017.

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250,000 were
reported by
users.

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1.5 years
316 listings
removed

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3 months
92 listings
reported

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Our Place
“Home sweet home”
“Tree Removal”
Before After

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To-Do
Share
Before & After
Screenshots

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“Our trend prior to hiring
your team had been
negative or flat year over
year. Currently they are
up by 10%.

92. @joyannehawkins
Thank You!
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