Google Hybrid Search Results Retaken by Local Businesses

04 Apr Google Hybrid Search Results Retaken by Local Businesses

Just this month, a major shift has been noticed in the way Google Everything displays local search results, which are also known as hybrid local results. Results like these began showing up in November 2010 for most local queries. In the early months, it was noticed that Google was using a brand filter that caused businesses with multiple locations to show up as a single listing on Google.

Just this week, though, Google has clearly changed their mind about how they treat local businesses. The following changes were noticed:

1) The same business can now show more than one result.
2) Organic webpage placement no longer directly influence rankings.

A quick study of these new hybrid results seems to show that they are the same results that can be seen on the first page of Google Maps, but with the ranks on the first page of results altered. The strong bias of the near organic ranking algorithm had is no longer overpowering and the traditional Maps search results are shining through, again. This essentially re-opens the for local businesses and helps them achieve prime organic search results.

Aside from these change, Google is also displaying a lot more 7-Pack results at the expense of hybrid ones.

Observers have begun to call these changes collectively as the “Google Local Panda Update”, since they came so recently after Google rolled out their Google Panda search algorithm. However, it’s not likely that the new update has anything to do with these changes.