As much as possible I have. I have done the searches logged in and out, with personal results on and off, logged in via different users and from different computers with search histories, with different location settings etc etc.

While I can’t rule out the affect of various personalization issues, these results were seen across enough searches and by enough disparate searchers that I am confident that something is changing at the core of the search parameters not on the user end.

@Stever
Certainly search results quality had declined in usefulness with or without the 7 Packs…. although the reduced footprint could certainly be a reason for the change.

We won’t know for sure and if we asked would be told “we are always experimenting and testing the results to find to improve search quality”. Or some such blather.

Have you conducted regular tests within your own foot-print area as well? I have found that at times my clients within their local area conducting a Google search using the exact same search phrase and me (I am not in their area) gets slightly different Place results returned. So I am wondering if your foot-print can play into the location sensitivity factors.

By boosting that radius, more businesses get a shot at one of those 3, 4 or 5 spots and users can graphically see by the many more little red dots on the map that there are indeed more to choose from. Maybe that will spur some users to click on the map or the More Local results links to discover other businesses other than the few shown???