Google has made changes to their one box local business listing results based on IP addresses. In the past users had to add a GEO qualifier, i.e. a city name to get the Google one box local listings to show up within the search results. But recently they have made changes which return Google local listings defaulting to searcher’s city when a GEO qualifier isn’t present. The results are based on the searchers IP address. This is just more evidence that if you don’t have an optimized Google local listing, you are missing the boat. While traditionally 40% percent of all searches used a GEO qualifier, this recent change assumes the searcher is looking for something in their local area and automatically shows the local listings among the results. This change, that is now very present among desktop searches, was probably geared towards mobile devices to improve mobile user experience and to streamline mobile search results towards Google Maps.
We are also noticing that the Google Local One Box is typically coming up in the number four position for these broad search terms. We are also noticing this behavior when the user is logged in and when they are not. We also tested several other keywords that we know that our clients were showing up for when using the GEO qualifier search terms and it looks as if the search term has to be very broad. For example Lawyer, Dentist and Flooring. This is big game changer in local search.