To effectively market your local business, you need to know the historical development of Google’s algorithms and how they affect every entrepreneur. Having this information allows you to avoid the most common local SEO mistakes. Starting in 2005, Google meticulously added changes to benefit local business owners.
2005: Google merges Maps and Local Business Center
Google introduced Local Business Center to the world, and it sparked a revolution in terms of how local businesses could advertise. Immediately afterward, they merged LBC with Maps to create a one-stop experience for all the important information. This included more relevant information about search results.
With driving directions, basic info and store hours, businesses had to synchronize their data across different platforms. It was the beginning of the SEO revolution.
2007: Universal Search and merged results
When Google introduced Universal Search, it created chaos in the business world. Traditional search results were now mixed with an array of listings from other engines. The concept of Universal Search meant that people could find information from more specific queries, such as News, Images and Video.
OneBox also started appearing within normal search results, increasing the importance of store listings for Google users around the world.
2010: The birth of Google Places
After five years, Local Business Center became Google Places. The updates added include geo-specific tagging options and better targeting features for all local businesses. Places was immediately aligned with local search results, instead of coming just through Google Maps.
2010 was the landmark year for Google’s prioritizing of local search results. Instead of website-specific actions and sync, brick-and-mortar businesses were forced to make local SEO an absolute priority. Google defended this move as giving “equal” chances to both small businesses and global conglomerates.
2012: The Venice update
With this addition to Google, every user saw their current location as the most important factor in displaying search results. This is perhaps the biggest impact on local SEO as it allowed users to merely enter the keywords, without local monikers.
A San Francisco citizen didn’t have to type “San Francisco pizza place” - it became just “pizza place” with distance being a large factor.
Using local page listings, businesses could rank higher on multiple queries and gained the ability to compete for more keywords.
2013: Hummingbird and more intelligent recognition
Before Hummingbird, Google had difficulties understanding long-tail keywords and it usually led to mistakes and wrong turns. With this 2013 update, local businesses could start relying on long-tail queries to drive traffic to their websites and physical locations.
Businesses could no longer use single or two-word keywords. Instead, they had to adapt to the new system and use a wider array of keywords.
2015: RankBrain and less listings
2015 was the true “boom” of Google’s ML platform. RankBrain is a special machine learning software that allowed Google to teach itself how to process results and rank web pages fairly. This year also saw the decrease of local search results to just three listings. After 2015, there was no more “gaming the algorithm.” Ranking high became more important than ever.
2016: Possum mixes up relevance and vicinity
Hummingbird did change the keyword state, but it also negatively impacted the already significant workload for small business. With premium content being a priority, Possum introduced a “double judgment” feature, where an initial location was used as a factor, but with only relevant search results appearing.
If your business doesn’t exactly match the query, it won’t appear even if the person searching for it is three feet away. This further deepened the gap between content and PPC marketing.