Code Venice:  Google’s big Local Search update in 2012 - Google Places

Code Venice:Google’s bigLocal Searchupdate in 2012Presentation SMX München 2012March 28, 2012 - 14:35 hHanns Kronenberg 1

Personal informationHanns Kronenberg Study of Business Economics with an emphasis on Marketing & Statistics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany 1996 – 2000 Productmanagement and Business Development for TV- platforms (RTL-Group, Deutsche Telekom) 2000 – 2007 Productmanagement, Business Development and SEO for Internet-platforms (Tomorrow Focus, muenchen.de, meinestadt.de) 2007 – 2011 independent SEO-consultant Since 2011 Head of Product Management SISTRIX 2

Search quality highlights: 40 changes for FebruaryImprovements to ranking for localsearch results. [launch codename“Venice”] This improvement improvesthe triggering of Local Universalresults by relying more on the rankingof our main search results as a signal. Source: http://insidesearch.blogspot.de/2012/02/search-quality-highlights-40-changes.html 3

With the Venice-update, Googlechanged therules for how theplaces-resultsare displayed inthe web-search 4

Get ready to relearn al lot ofthings you know about the localUniversal-Search integration 5

Organic results Code Venice = much morehybrid local results (Blended Place Search) Google Places results 6

What exactly are hybrid local results? 7

missing

heading

„Places

for...“ in

results

website‘s

heading

instead

the name

Places-entry hybrid

results (here„7-Pack“) less

gwurden

aesuts

dorganic

esichtet outside

hybrid

boxExample hybrid local results for „pizza münchen“ 8

(1) OneBox

3-Pack) (2)heading

identical

Places-entry (3)box

titled

„Places

for...“Example Places-OneBox „call a pizza münchen“ 9

Why is the difference between hybridlocal results and Places- OneBoxes so important? 10

Google uses a different Ranking-algorithm when they sort the hybrid local results 11

Before we lookat the differences in the Ranking- algorithm, let`s crunch some data 12

Evaluation Special evaluation of SISTRIX Toolbox Data SERPs for 1 million keywords on google.de (1. SERP) Comparing the data from two survey periods A) 01. CW 2012 (January) Venice B) 12. CW 2012 (March) 13

Amount of Google-SERPs with Google Places-results (Places-OneBoxes and hybrid local results)8 % 1. SERP with hybrid local results 1. SERP with Places-OneBoxes6 % together 5,2 % together 4,7 %4 % 1.7 % Venice 3.7 %2 % 3.5 % 1.0 %0 % 1. CW 2012 12. CW 2012 Source: SISTRIX Toolbox Data, 1. SERP for 1 million Keywords evaluated at google.de, 1. CW 2012 and 12. CW 2012 The amount of SERPs with hybrid local results has grown from 1 % to 3,5 % 14

Amount of Google Local Universal IntegrationsAll Local Universal Integrations amount amount = hybrid local results hybrid local results 21% 67% 100% 01. CW 12. CW Venice 2012 2012 amount amount Places-OneBoxes Places-OneBoxes 79% 33% Source: SISTRIX Toolbox Data, 46245 (1. CW) and. 52498 (12. CW) 1. SERPs with Local Universal results on google.de, 1. CW 2012 and 12. CW 2012 After Venice, two-thirds of the Google Local Universal Integrations will be hybrid local results 15

Distribution of amount of Places within the hybrid local results 12. CW 201270 %56 %42 %28 %14 % 12.00 % 10.00 % 3.00 % 2.00 % 70.00 %0 % 3 Places 4 Places 5 Places 6 Places 7 Places Source: SISTRIX Toolbox Data, 35093 1. SERPs with hybrid local results on google.de, 12. CW 2012 Most of the integrations we see for hybrid local results are „7-Packs“ 16

Distribution of amount of Places within the Places-OneBoxes 12. CW 201280 %64 %48 %32 %16 % 27.00 % 73.00 % 0 % 0 % 0 % 0 %0 % 2 Places 3 Places 4 Places 5 Places 6 Places 7 Places Source: SISTRIX Toolbox Data, 17405 1. SERPs with Places-OneBoxes on google.de, 12. CW 2012 It seems that you will only find Places- OneBoxes as either „2-Packs“ or „3-Packs“ 17

It seems that hybrid localresults are more likely to beshown for industry-speciﬁc searches (“coffee shopmunich” for example), whilePlaces-OneBoxes show upmore often for brand-queries (“starbucks munich” for example). 18

Type of result Ranking-algorithm1. Organic results Google algorithm: organic index2. Google Places-OneBox Google Places algorithm (Universal-Search-Integration) • First result(s) -> Google algorithm: organic index3. hybrid local results (mix between organic and Google Places results) • Padding of „7-Pack“ with additional results -> Google Places algorithm Comparing 3 different Local Search results 19

How can weunlock the hybridlocal resultrankings? 20

Google search-partners such as aol.com ort-online.de show the pure organic SERPs withoutGoogle`s Universal-Search integrations.We can use this informationto reconstruct how Google puts together their hybrid local results. 21

powered

by Google “normal“ organicr result Example organic result„Pizza münchen“ aol.de 22

The ﬁrst organic Top10 result that Google is able to match a Places-entry to will trigger thedisplay of hybrid local results 23

SERP google.de („Blended Place Search Results“) SERP aol.de („Unblended Google Search Results“) „sprachschule münchen“ Sponsored

Link Places

connected

1 Places

connected e

result 2 hybrid

result

Places

connected e hybrid

result

3 Places

connected e hybrid e

result

connected

Places

Page hybrid no

connected

Places

Page no

connected

Places

Page hybride

result

5 Places

connected no

connected

Places

Page no

connected

Places

Page hybrid

7-Pack

completed

Places-results

without organic

Top-10

RankingComparison “Blended Place Search” and “Unblended Search” 24

Observed Ranking-rules for hybridlocal results 25

Observed Ranking-rules for hybridlocal results the ﬁrst organic result (A) with a connected Places-page can trigger a “hybrid local results“-box on the SERP 25

Observed Ranking-rules for hybridlocal results the ﬁrst organic result (A) with a connected Places-page can trigger a “hybrid local results“-box on the SERP the hybrid local results will start at the same position where (A) can be found in the “pure organic ranking” (see AOL-SERPs for example) 25

Observed Ranking-rules for hybridlocal results the ﬁrst organic result (A) with a connected Places-page can trigger a “hybrid local results“-box on the SERP the hybrid local results will start at the same position where (A) can be found in the “pure organic ranking” (see AOL-SERPs for example) you will ﬁnd additional organic results from the Top-10 for which Google is able to match connected Places-pages in the “hybrid local results“-box 25

Observed Ranking-rules for hybridlocal results the first organic result (A) with a connected Places-page can trigger a “hybrid local results“-box on the SERP the hybrid local results will start at the same position where (A) can be found in the “pure organic ranking” (see AOL-SERPs for example) you will find additional organic results from the Top-10 for which Google is able to match connected Places-pages in the “hybrid local results“-box the box (7-Pack hybrids) will be padded with the best Google Places / Google Maps results until all 7 slots are filled 25

Observed Ranking-rules for hybridlocal results the first organic result (A) with a connected Places-page can trigger a “hybrid local results“-box on the SERP the hybrid local results will start at the same position where (A) can be found in the “pure organic ranking” (see AOL-SERPs for example) you will find additional organic results from the Top-10 for which Google is able to match connected Places-pages in the “hybrid local results“-box the box (7-Pack hybrids) will be padded with the best Google Places / Google Maps results until all 7 slots are filled the number of “padded results” increases the typically number of 10 results on the 1. SERP by the same number (for example: “sprachschule münchen”: 10 organic results +2 padded results = 12 results) 25

Please notice: Exceptions there are certain exceptions like for example Location Speciﬁc Results getting into all of these exceptions is something that would go beyond the scope of this 15 minute presentation 26

Conclusion 1:To reach the top spotin the Local Universalresults, in most cases(hybrid local result),you need to have thebest organic ranking 27

Conclusion 2:Google will „penalize“ the 1.organic result that has aPlaces-proﬁle attached to it,by adding up to 6competitors to the hybridlocal results box.This means that sometimesit is a good idea for the Nr.1 to disconnect the listingfrom its Places-page. 28

Conclusion 3:keep optimizing thePlaces-entry to bestproﬁt from all thepossible Places-integrations 29

Website(s): sistrix.com sistrix.de Twitter: @HannsKronenbergE-Mail: h.kronenberg@sistrix.com 30

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Code Venice:  Google’s big Local Search update in 2012 - Google Places

by Hanns Kronenberg

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