Local Pack Rankings are vital for small and medium scale businesses, especially brick-and-mortar stores with a physical presence. The local pack refers to the set of local business listings that appear prominently in the search engine results page (SERP) when users perform location-based queries. Recently, a local search forum noticed strange variations and fluctuations in map pack rankings. These changes were observed after the November 2023 algorithm update and showed drastic differences in rankings based on the time of day. Joy Hawkins from Sterling Sky commented:
“Rankings significantly dropped overnight. The position dropped from 1 to 10, and further. Then, by the end of the day, it recovered most of the rankings. But now it has dropped again! Can anyone tell me what is going on?”
Preliminary testing and large number of reports revealed that Google now checks whether a business is currently open or closed. The open/close status impacts the Map Pack rankings significantly. The following figure depicts search rankings for an Orlando based lawyer two-hours apart. The image on the left is when the business is open where as the right one is when the business was closed. When the business was closed, its search rankings were significantly lower compared to when it was open.
Similarly, the following figure shows a psychiatrist’s rankings. The left image shows rankings on a holiday when the business was open whereas the right image shows rankings on a day when the business was closed. Thus, business closure would result in lower rankings.
Now the question is: whom does it favor? Google has always been a customer-centric company and the variation in these heatmaps depict that the Google search algorithm is automatically shifting ranking depending upon the time of day. This improves the sense of competition that exists between various businesses and optimizes the search results for the end-user.
The business which operate round the clock will remain mostly unaffected by these fluctuations. Rather business operating 24/7 actually benefit from this as these business continue to rank even after the competitors disappear. The following figure shows the ranking chart for a 24/7 operational business during business hours and after rush hours:
The following figure shows the variance in the Map Pack rankings on hour basis for five pizzerias. Rankings for each of these pizzerias fluctuated between their hours of operation. 0
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