This document summarizes the results of Darren Shaw's 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors Survey. Some of the key findings include:
1. Proximity of a business's address to the user's search location became the number one local search ranking factor, surpassing physical address.
2. Consistency and completeness of citations across sources increased in importance as citation factors made up 10 of the top 50 factors compared to 7 in 2015.
3. While reviews remained very important, citations saw a larger increase and now outnumber reviews as a ranking factor.
4. Google My Business factors like attributes, categories, and business hours also rose in the rankings.
37. New Citation Factors
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Consistency of
Structured Citations
Consistency on
Primary Data Sources
Consistency on
Tier 1 Sites
Consistency on
Tier 3 Sites
Consistency on
Tier 4 Sites
38. New Citation Factors
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Enhancement /
Completeness of Citations
Presence of Business
on Expert Curated "Best
of" and Similar Lists
Proper Category Associations
on Aggregators and Top Tier
Citation Sources
Prominence on Key
Industry-Relevant
Domains