SEO News You Can Use: Local SEO Expert Emphasizes Relevance, Prominence and Proximity

Local SEO expert Mary Bowling recently participated in a Moz.com Whiteboard Friday and examined three factors that drive Google’s local algorithm and local rankings.

Bowling said Google’s local algorithm has always been based on relevance, prominence and proximity.

Bowling emphasized that for relevance, the algorithm is asking: “Does this business do or sell or have the attributes that the search is looking for?” For proximity, she says the question is, “Is the business close enough to the searcher to be considered to be a good answer for this query?” For prominence, it’s “Which businesses are the most popular and the most well-regarded in their local market area?”

Bowling says proximity is fluid in the eyes of Google local SEO. She says it depends on the query, the searcher’s location, the relevance to the query and the prominence of the business.
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Editor’s Note: “SEO News You Can Use” is a weekly blog post posted every Monday morning only on SEOblog.com, rounding up all the top SEO news from around the world. Our goal is to make SEOblog.com a one-stop shop for everyone looking for SEO news, education and for hiring an SEO expert with our comprehensive SEO agency directory.