Is the "brand filter" still an element of the Local Filter?

[JS Girard]

I've been looking into the Google Local filter recently. Posts from 2016 mention that multi-location business often fall afoul of the filter and that usually only one will actually show. More recent articles don't discuss this. Is that still an integral element of the local filter? We don't have clients with this particular problem, so it's rather hard for me to look into.

Specifically, it suddenly struck me that this could be a reason why certain searches (e.g. "Pharmacy", "bank") are inexplicably treated as branded searches. That is, maybe Google realized that the brand filter is highly undesirable for certain verticals and instead of adjusting the filter itself, went around the problem by marking the searches as branded so that the brand filtering doesn't occur?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

The brand filter is still a thing, but it's related to the traditional organic results, not the local pack results. Although, it does have an indirect impact on the local pack results.

I think this is the older article you are referring to? What Big Brands Need to Know About Google's Filter

This trick that's mentioned in the article still works too:

However, when you add &filter=0 to the end of the URL string, you will see that most of these location pages are being filtered out.

 

[JS Girard]

The brand filter is still a thing, but it's related to the traditional organic results, not the local pack results. Although, it does have an indirect impact on the local pack results.

I think this is the older article you are referring to? What Big Brands Need to Know About Google's Filter

This trick that's mentioned in the article still works too:

Actually, I tracked down the article where I remembered seeing something like that, and it turns out to be much more recent (2020).

I'm actually writing a blog post in French on the filter (French-language material is incredibly lacking in the Local SEO sphere), which prompted this question. I'm still curious if those filtering cases could explain why certain very broad keywords are treated as brands.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

@JS Girard , thanks for posting this, it is very timely for one particular client we have with several locations within a 20 mile radius to each other, some much closer to each other. @Colan Nielsen, I read the linked article you posted and the more recent one that JS found. In the more recent article, Joy mentions:

"For more case studies showing the impact of the filter and tips to avoid it, please check out the extended guide on the local filter in our training."​

However, that link is not working for me. Would you or @JoyHawkins be able to provide a working link?

Thanks!
Jeff

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Jeff, we don't offer the training guide anymore. I'll get the article updated and remove that link.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hi Jeff, we don't offer the training guide anymore. I'll get the article updated and remove that link.

Thanks for the update.