Joy Hawkins says, “It seems very apparent that Google has a filter for local that weeds through all the listings that should appear in the 3-pack on Google and in the Local Finder (when you click “More Places”), then filters some based on their spam score.

Bill Slawski wrote about this in July and referenced the patent that was granted June 21, 2016, about it. To quote the patent:

A spam score is assigned to a business listing when the listing is received at a search entity. A noise function is added to the spam score such that the spam score is varied. In the event that the spam score is greater than a first threshold, the listing is identified as fraudulent and the listing is not included in (or is removed from) the group of searchable business listings.

I started seeing more of this filter back in July of this year when people started reporting that thelocal search results were shrinking and eliminating a lot of businesses that were previously visible. The screenshot below helps show the difference that the filter makes. Before July 2016, there were several businesses that were included in the list that were eliminated in July“.

Is Google filtering your business in the local search results?

Search Engine Land

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