2014 Local Search Ranking Factors

Introduction by David Mihm from the Original Article On Moz

From year to year, the only thing you can count on in local search results is change.

Last year’s survey corresponded with the introduction of Local carousels to desktop SERPs and the release of New Google Maps . The summer of 2014 saw an even more dramatic shake-up with the release of Google My Business —the product of over two years of work by Google engineers—and more importantly the Pigeon algorithm update.

While there is plenty of evidence to suggest that shake-up is still occurring (one theory is that the update introduced a much stronger machine-learning element than we’ve ever seen before), conducting the survey at this time provides a very useful data point against which to measure change year-over-year.

Building on the evolution of last year’s format (based on the responses to last year’s survey), I asked respondents this year to rate specfic factors that contribute to rankings across both major result types (pack/carousel, and localized organic) as well as the more time-sensitive question of which factors have increased and decreased since the introduction of Pigeon.

In the interest of simplicity, I streamlined this year’s survey, removing the differences in desktop vs. mobile and pack/carousel vs. maps results (judged to be negligible last year), and consolidating the individual factors listed in the results to just the top 50 in each category.

The Survey

This year’s survey was divided into four parts.

I. General Ranking Factors

In this section, I asked participants to identify the influence of eight thematic clusters of ranking factors across the two primary types of Local results (localized organic, pack/carousel). In each case, they assigned a percentage of influence to all eight thematic clusters, totaling 100%. Businesses consistently ranked behind their competition in each of these types of results can use this section to prioritize their marketing efforts by theme.

II. Specific Ranking Factors

In part A of this section, I asked the experts to rank the top 20 individual ranking factors (out of a total list of 106) that have the biggest impact on pack/carousel rankings.

In part B of this section, I asked them to rank the top 20 factors from the same list, only this time to rank them based on impact on localized organic rankings.

In part C of this section, I asked them to rank the top 20 factors from the same list based on biggest impact in a competitive market, across both result types (pack/carousel and localized organic).

Results were then tabulated via inverse scoring, where the #1 ranked factor received the most “points” for that question, and the lowest-ranked factor received the fewest points. (The factors ranking outside the top 20 for all respondents ended up with zero points.)

III. Factors Most Affected by Pigeon

Here, I asked the experts to rank the five factors they felt had increased most in importance as a result of Pigeon, and the five factors they felt had decreased most as a result of Pigeon.

Results were then tabulated via inverse scoring, where the #1 ranked factor received the most “points” for that question, and the lowest-ranked factor received the fewest points. (The factors ranking outside the top 5 for all respondents ended up with zero points.)

IV. Negative Ranking Factors

In this section, I asked the experts to rank 30 negative factors in order of most damaging to most benign.

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