The essentials
- Three official criteria: relevance (the business matches the query), distance (between the business and the user), prominence (standing online and offline).
- The heaviest signals: the primary category, reviews, consistency of your details, the site's content, links and citations, engagement on the listing.
- Personalisation: the ranking changes with the user's position; there is no single local position.
- Two rankings: the local pack (listings) and the organic results (pages), with partly different signals.
The aim of Local ranking means the way Google orders businesses in the local pack and in Google Maps for a given search. Google officially describes three criteria — relevance, distance and prominence — without detailing their weight. The industry's studies, testing and experience with the listings we work on allow us to go further: which signals make up each criterion, which weigh most, and which you control.
The three criteria and their signals
| Criterion | What Google assesses | Main signals | Control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relevance | Does the business match what the user is looking for? | Primary and secondary categories, the listing's name, declared services and products, the description, the linked site's content, the words used in reviews | High |
| Distance | How far is it from where the search happened (or from the town typed)? | The listing's address, the service area, the user's position | Poor |
| Prominence | Is it known and recognised? | Reviews (number, rating, freshness, responses), citations on third-party sites, links to the site, the site's authority, press mentions, engagement on the listing (clicks, calls, directions, photos viewed) | High, over the medium term |
What weighs most, in practice
- The primary category : the strongest relevance signal. A listing under "Restaurant" doesn't appear on "pizzeria" against listings under "Pizzeria".
- Reviews : volume, rating, regularity, content and responses. It is the prominence signal you can influence fastest.
- Proximity : unavoidable, and unchangeable without a new location.
- The listing's completeness and activity : services, photos, posts, questions and answers.
- NAP consistency and citations : the trust Google places in the business's existence.
- The website : a relevant local page, structured data, general authority (links).
- Engagement : a listing that is clicked, called and photographed signals a business people like.
The corresponding levers are detailed in optimising your Google Business Profile and Google reviews.
The role of distance and personalisation
For a "near me" search or one with no town, Google uses the device's position; for a search with a town, the town centre or the area it associates with the query. The radius within which a listing can appear depends on competitive density: a few hundred metres in a city centre for "hairdresser", several kilometres in a rural area. The consequence: your position isn't a single figure but a map. Local tracking tools take the ranking from a grid of points, as explained in tracking your position on Google Maps. A listing can be first at 500 metres and absent at 3 kilometres; widening that radius is precisely what prominence work is for.
The local pack and the organic results: two rankings
| Local pack (listings) | Organic results (pages) | |
|---|---|---|
| What is ranked | Businesses (Google listings) | Web pages |
| Dominant signals | Category, distance, reviews, engagement | Content, backlinks, technical quality |
| The site's role | Secondary but real (relevance, authority) | Central |
| The listing's role | Central | None |
A business can be in the local pack without being in the organic results, and vice versa. The two are worked on together: the site's local page feeds the listing's relevance, and the listing's reviews reassure the visitor who arrived through the site. Those differences are detailed in local SEO vs classic SEO.
What doesn't work (any more)
- Adding keywords to the listing name : effective in the short term, punished with suspension.
- Creating listings with false addresses to cover towns: suspension, sometimes of every listing on the account.
- Buying reviews : detected, deleted, and unlawful.
- Piling on categories that don't fit: it dilutes relevance.
- Stuffing the description with keywords : the description isn't a significant ranking factor.
Local ranking and AI
Google's AI Mode, Gemini and assistants such as ChatGPT draw on the same signals to recommend a business: category, reviews, consistency, standing. They add a reading of reviews and content to answer finer requests ("a quiet restaurant with outdoor seating for a business dinner"). Local ranking work is therefore also local GEO work. Tracking those metrics is described in which KPIs to track in local SEO.
How GreenRed helps
Rather than juggling several tools, GreenRed's Google Business Profile module brings these metrics together in a single dashboard, compares them over time and tells you which actions come first. You can try it free, with no card, from the Pricing.
Frequently asked questions
What are Google's three local ranking criteria?
Relevance (does the business match the search?), distance (how far is it from where the search happened?) and prominence (is it known and recognised, online and offline?). Google combines them: a business further away but better rated and more relevant can outrank a closer one.
Why does my local ranking change depending on where I search from?
Because distance is one of the three criteria and Google uses the device's position or the place associated with the query. Every point in your area produces a different ranking. Local rank tracking is therefore done across a grid of points, not from one place.
Does the website influence local pack ranking?
Yes, in two ways: its content strengthens the listing's relevance (Google compares the two) and its authority (links, citations) feeds prominence. A listing connected to a complete local page and a recognised site ranks better than one connected to a generic home page.
How long does it take to improve local ranking?
A category change or completing the listing produces effects within days to weeks. Reviews, citations and links act over two to six months. The radius within which you appear widens progressively as prominence grows.