Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Continues Test of Horizontal Local One Box
Frank Motola of Brandastic shared with me another recent example of Google’s test of a horizontal Local One Box that sits prominently at the top of the serps rather than to the side.
This test has been reported for several weeks although I have not yet seen it in the wild. It would be one more step towards aligning mobile and desktop results. And of Google dominating the results with their own properties. I am sure that it will further inflame Yelp’s antitrust fervor as well.
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Hm… I thought the horizontal local one box is default for card-view SERPs. I had this view in one of my browsers for awhile, and all local one boxes were horizontal.
Mike, what’s the reasoning behind this horizontal display? And since when does “/ Los Angeles Office” follow Google’s guidelines for business names? I’ve been seeing a disturbing number of spammy business names lately – in the #1 spot.
@Jeffrey
As to the reasoning behind a horizontal display … I am never one to second guess Google’s reasoning. That being said one can presume that either it is money or data driven.
Relevance of name to a search phrase is likely to lead to this sort of result. Its an artifact of the way that Google goes about answering queries.
Nice placement… if you can get it 🙂
The most interesting thing that we see with this is the fact that “smokestack inspection” is not even close to any Google “categories” it is simply what is featured on the website and in the listing description. This opens up options for many companies in niche service areas to grab a one box, local driven result. Our client is loving it and we apologize the Google rules purists, yes we did identify that market area this company covers as a part of the name. My guess is that we probably did not need to, but since they have several offices across the country we wanted to create some distinct differences.
We have tested several other “long-tail” searches using language that is very specific to the company’s services and they also bring up a one box. They are back to the box on the right side now, but still coming up with this kind of local result for search strings like this is very nice:
“non destructive testing of industrial chimney in los angeles”
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