Local search algorithms?
By Matt McGee on Jul 19, 2006 in Google, Local Search, MSN Search, Yahoo
earlpearl asks a good question over at the Small Business Ideas forum: What factors are involved in the local search algorithm?
As I said in that thread, I’ve not seen (or done) any research on this question. But in Google, Yahoo, and MSN, when you run the same search on both the main search engine and the local search engine, you get different results — and it’s not because the local algo simply ranks based on distance from the query location.
Compare these two searches:
Google (regular): seattle hotels
Google Local: seattle hotels
In the regular SERPs, when you strip out the comparison sites (and some crap), you get hotels ranked in this order:
1. Hotel Monaco
2. Fairmont
3. Sheraton
4. Renaissance (Marriott)
5. Edgewater
In Google Local, the order is:
1. Crowne Plaza
2. Holiday Inn
3. Westin
4. Hotel Monaco
5. Vintage Park
etc.
Would love to learn more about what’s at play in the local search algo’s……
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1 Comment(s)
By earlpearl on Jul 21, 2006 | Reply
Bill Slawski (bragadocio) who posts at seobythesea.com and at cre8asite.com and I are investigating this further. Bill has a few insights into this…and we discussed this earlier at seorefugee. Come on over and try and add insights.
It would be interesting, in fact a KILLER, if we could figure this one out!
Dave