When searching for nearby services via ‘near me’ queries recently, I found that the Google local pack is filtering the listings by default to those with 4 or more stars! This appears to be the case if the results have a high saturation of local businesses (all with online reviews).
Sometimes, even the most subtle of changes to Google’s search results can have a massive impact on strategy.
Over the past couple of years, Google has amped up their local search results. From Google My Business Listings to the Local Pack, Google is trying to put small businesses on the map, and make it easier for users to find useful local information.
