Why does zoom in/Zoom out in local map page reorder the listings?

[dbilling]

I'm new to local SEO, but I noticed an interesting anomaly today. I'm hoping some of you very smart people can make some sense of it!

The anomaly regards drastically different order of local search results after a zoom out/zoom in on the map level of local results.

Here's an example. Google "catering seattle". Go to the local pack results, and click on "more catering" at the bottom of the local pack. Now you see the 20 local listings on the left, with a map on the right. Go ahead and zoom out one level on the map -- then immediately zoom back in one level, which should put you right back where you started... but wait! .. the listing order of the 20 businesses has now changed, and considerably so! When I just didi it, the #1 result went to #7, and the #16 result became #1.

Anyone know why this happens? I'm very interested if this means anything for the listings that move substantially...

Thanks for any insight,
-Dave

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Dave,

I never look at that particular view, starting from the snack pack then going to more results.
But I did just now with your example and you are right. Not sure why that happens.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

Hi Dave,

I never look at that particular view, starting from the snack pack then going to more results.
But I did just now with your example and you are right. Not sure why that happens.

It happens because Google is serving up dynamic results for a particular user in a given area. When the area changes then the results change. This was announced at Google's developer conference.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Andrew, that totally makes sense.

But his concern is, he zooms out then zooms back and the results are different, even though he should be back to the original zoom level he started at.

"Go ahead and zoom out one level on the map -- then immediately zoom back in one level, which should put you right back where you started... but wait! .. the listing order of the 20 businesses has now changed, and considerably so!"

Do you have any ideas about that?