Map Pack Rankings Based on Location

[creekmoremarketing]

When searching for a company with the city they are located in, does the map pack rank based off of distance from the central point of the city? I have a client that has significantly higher reviews than other people in their industry and ranks highest organically for the different types of services they offer but is still outranked in the map pack. As a side note, they are located on the outer part of their town, away from their downtown area so I wanted to see if this may be a factor.

 

[Joey Abna]

It is more about where the searcher is located at the moment of the search and the location in relation to the searcher of the businesses that offer the product or service. Not too mention there are numerous other factors that effect ranking.

 

[JS Girard]

As far as the geographical aspect which as Joey says, is only one of many factors, in my experience the "subfactors" go roughly

1. Geographical distance to the searcher
   • This can override even an explicit named geographical sector! We often see this testing in the Quebec City area from our Montreal location.
2. (if there is a geographical name) Is the profile inside or outside the city/area limits?
   • While Google does not limit itself SOLELY to profiles inside a sector, it has starkly restricted the ability of out-of-territory profiles to rank.
   • If the geographical name is a dot and does not have displayed limit in Google, this does not apply at all
3. Distance to the point where the name is.
   • This is only where google determines that searcher location is irrelevant. This penalty is mostly levied against profiles very far from the name and can be countered more easily than being out-or-area.