Local Finder with Organic Listings

I wanted to do some testing on the new Organic links showing in the Local Finder which just began rolling out the past few days. These listings are seemingly rolling out live for the whole country after some began seeing them this weekend and even more reported them today. Where is G pulling the information in the Local Finder Organic section? Below are screenshots of test results.

I searched for “Nashville Auto Insurance” both logged into Chrome and from an Incognito browser. After clicking on the first result, the Local Finder Organic listings were different. The first 2 Organic results were the same but the Incognito browser (right side) had another listing from Manta followed by YP and the WhitePages. My logged in browser displayed a YP listing, a competitor and then WhitePages.

 

 

The Geico and Robins Insurance Agency were exactly the same logged in and Incognito. You can see the Geico screenshot below:

 

 

I tested this for several markets and several industries. Nearly all of the time there was no discrepancy between being logged in and being in Incognito. The particular listing above with Nashville Auto Insurance was an exception.

Where is Google pulling the Organic results from? If you simply Google the business name, the results are similar, but not completely the same. Usually, 67% of the listings are the same.

I even performed several site:domain searches, both logged in and Incognito, to see if those matched up more evenly. The results of those were nearly the same as searching the Business Name. Apex Plumbing had 4 of the same Organic results simply searching the business name.

 

 

Rob West Plumbing in Chicago had 3 of the same Organic results searching the business name:

 

 

Family Life Chiropractic in San Jose had 4 of the same results, also searching the business name:

 

 

This site search of a Chicago B&B shows a similar result to the ones posted above without a site search. Others I tested also performed similarly with a site search.

 

 

It seems to get a bit more complicated when brands get involved. Linda Wagner, who you may remember from my previous post, had 1 Organic result which was the same, 2 which were similar and another 2 which were different:

 

 

Takeaways

• The Local Finder Organic Listings are showing 5 results
• Results are based upon the specific business you are viewing BUT
• Listings are also showing competitors in some cases AND
• Are also showing directories (Yelp, Manta, YP, WhitePages) AND
• Are showing Social Media sites (Facebook)
• Titles are rarely the same per query
• G is pulling results based on the query: Business Name, City, State

It is difficult to determine where G is pulling the Organic listings from in the Local Finder. There are some similarities when doing a “site:domain” search but its not 100% accurate. A business name search proved similar results but is also not 100% the same. Perhaps these new Organic listings in the Local Finder perform similar to Organic listings in the SERPs and they will never be 100% the same no matter who is searching from where.

UPDATE: As Joy Hawkins expertly figured out, it appears G is pulling results based on the query: Business Name, City, State. In the Linda Wagner example, you can see the string – https://www.google.com/search?q=Allstate%20Insurance%3A%20Linda%20Wagner%20Lake%20in%20the%20Hills%2C%20IL. The source code shows the same: Business Name%City%State. Great pick up by Joy!

What do you think?

UPDATE: Jen Slegg has a terrific write up about this as well. Stop by and give it a read.