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Google Local One Box Listings Appear – Biggest Change to Irish Search?
This could be rather big for anyone working in SEO in Ireland. It doesn’t seem so long ago, but in fact I had to go back to November 2007 to find my post about Google Local Business Center including Ireland. Well it took a while for anything else to happen, but finally it appears that Ireland is getting local listings in the one box listing (if you’re interested in what the “one box” is here’s a post I wrote in January 2007 explaining the one box [where does the time go??]).
Cork Web Design Local One Box Listing
Earlier this morning I received an email from Simon at Cork Web Design telling me about this:
Google.ie [web design cork]
I’m seeing one box local results appearing for both ‘Web search’ and ‘pages from Ireland’. Now this really is a big deal – if you previously held onto a #1 position prepare to see search referrals take a nose dive, at least initially as the novelty factor gets people clicking on local results. Here’s a search for [web design wicklow]:
Google.ie (Web search) [web design wicklow]
The Impact of Local Listings in One Box?
So imagine for a moment that the exact match domain webdesignwicklow.ie has probably sat pretty at #1 for ever, receiving targeted referrals from Google. All of a sudden today three of their competitors now sit above them with a very strong piece of collateral (the map) to draw attention. It looks like maltron.ie, who are sitting at #4 in organic now has both the top local listing and their #4 position. Not only have the previous #1 lost relative position in the SERP, but some of their competitors now effectively have multiple listings, one of which sits atop the SERP.
How to get included?
If you read my post about Google Local Business Listings you can find out how to get your site onto the One Box local results map. I’ll actually have to do some digging to find out again how listings are ranked – I remember reading up about this, but it was almost 1.5 years back now.
What other SERPs are showing One Box Local Listings?
I only had a quick look around, so if you’ve seen the one box on your travels please let me know what keywords are triggering the maps. For now I’m confident that only lcoal search queries with a geographic modifier will bring up the local results (due to Ireland’s crappy IP address management).
Happy hunting on Local Search!
[Update] Obviously this still has a few kinks to be ironed out:
Clicking on the “More” link brings you to “web design near Wicklow, NB, Canada”
That’s surely a crappy user experience, and might mean that these local listings disappear quite soon… (hat tip to Jason)
Hi Richard
Well spotted Richard and about time from Google. This is great for Irish businesses who understand what they are doing and know how to take advantage of it … Of course, we’ll be blogging about it on the Digital Marketing Institute blog later today!
This is big news….
anthony
Comment by Anthony Quigley — May 20, 2009 @ 2:47 pm
Google local business listings is really a good source to get ranked for lot of local keywords
Comment by gagan @ Vancouver Web design — May 21, 2009 @ 8:27 am
Exciting stuff, thanks for sharing.
Note the hat tip to Jason is broken!
Comment by Joe Scanlon — May 21, 2009 @ 9:27 am
Hi Richard
I’m based in Dublin and a search for restaurant without any geographic modifiers shows Local Business Results centered on Galway !
Comment by Merrill — May 21, 2009 @ 10:05 am
just spotted this over the last few days myself. we jumped from page 2 to page 1 for a search with our main keywords instantly. now in effect we appear twice on page 1.
anyone using paid advertising on terms that triger the local listings onebox should watch their CTR’s mind. it will definitely affect them.
Comment by crossan — May 21, 2009 @ 10:49 am
@Anthony – I couldn’t find the link from your blog post to the finder
@Joe – fixed now, thanks.
@Merrill – this is likely due to your IP showing as being somewhere it’s not. I’m with Digiweb and my IP shows me as in Louth even though I’m in Dublin. This is likely one of the big reasons Google never launched this previously, and also why I think it wont last long either.
Thanks all for dropping by,
Rgds
Richard
Comment by Richard Hearne — May 21, 2009 @ 10:49 am
Richard: I thought that to but an IP lookup showed Dublin for my location.
Comment by Merrill — May 21, 2009 @ 11:14 am
Richard,
Throw in 3 pay per click ads at the top, then a 10 box listing and it’s obvious that the organic listings will suffer.
It’s a good strategy now to go after both the local listing and the organics and maybe throw in PPC as well.
Local search can bring excellent traffic and it’s a great way to get to the top of Google in no time at all.
I also noticed that singular terms without regional qualifiers will trigger local listings.
Comment by Michael — May 22, 2009 @ 5:50 am
[...] Richard knows more about this sort of thing than I and he blogged about it 2 days ago. Looks like a good change for Irish businesses! [...]
Pingback by Google does hotel reviews now? — May 22, 2009 @ 9:41 am
Saw this also during the week. I wonder why they decided to roll it out aswell. I do know they are busy with their street mapping in Ireland. So maybe they want to roll them out together to bring some extra attention to them both.
I too will be paying close attention to see how it effects traffic.
I’ve also seen some fluctuations in the positioning, so I’m guessing that G does some rotation, as well as some preferential placement due to low bounce rates and other metrics.
paul
Comment by paul — May 22, 2009 @ 10:55 pm
[...] Well imminent is certainly wasn’t, but last week we started seeing the first Google Local business listings for Irish searches. [...]
Pingback by How to Get Included in Google Local, and How to Improve Your Local Ranking. Google Local Business Center Guide - Red Cardinal — September 29, 2009 @ 10:10 am