There is a jump in the number of Google local packs being shown in the search results over the past couple of days, according to Mozcast.

There were increases in two types of local results.  First is the local pack which saw a jump from about ~10% to ~12%.

Then there is also an increase in the local one pack results as well.

This is not directly related to the Google Mobile Friendly Algo, as Dr. Pete Meyers from Moz confirms that the increase was across both mobile and desktop.

While he have seen occasional jumps and drops due to a code change on Google’s end, Meyers also confirms that it is a real increase, and not simply a code change.

US only

The changes do seem to be in the US only, at least right now, which is typical for many local updates and changes.  If you compare local results in Google.com to those in Google.ca or Google.co.uk, you will see quite a difference between the US and non-US results.

Brand bias

There does seem to be a huge bias towards brand.

For example, the search term “Home Depot” in Canada shows:

1. Home Depot Canada
2. Yellow Pages
3. HomeDepot.com (but to my local store location page)
4. Yelp
5. Yelp

But searching for the same thing in the US, where the change seems to have been implemented shows:

1. Home Depot
2. Home Depot Credit Card Login Page (not on Home Depot’s domain)
3. Home Depot on Facebook
4. Home Depot on Twitter
5. Home Depot Groupon

Suddenly third party review sites are demoted – which we knew from the Quality (aka Phantom 2) update.  Even when we continue with the US search results, we see Home Depot Foundation, Wikipedia, Home Depot’s YouTube Channel, stock quotes, Yahoo finance, etc.  We have to page through pages to get a Yelp result.

However, having a brand bias in local is a good thing, when searchers are looking for a specific brand or business.  If someone searches for a very specific business name, looking for the website of said business, it isn’t necessarily the best search experience if Google makes it hard to also find their official Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts associated with the business.

Doing a search for “business name reviews” does bring up search results that clearly bias to review sites.  In fact, when searching for “Home Depot Reviews”, the official site isn’t even on the first page, outside of the ad.

Doorway algo related?

There is speculation it could be related to a doorway algo update, but the timing doesn’t match up, unless there was an additional local-related purge last week.

Hijack related?

However, Google just did just remove duplicated listings from a company hijacking Google local listings from their rightful owners last week, so the timeline first better if the change was somehow related.  Could Google have implemented changes to ensure the correct local listing is displayed first, or making it so that searchers have a choice when they see more than one listing for the same company.

Google bombing local

But perhaps the most likely is the change Google is making to local results to prevent the “Google Bombing” that was occurring in local results which could allow crowd sourced names be associated with businesses and locations – which we saw where derogatory terms were being associated with specific locations, such as the White House, or places, such as specific restaurant chains.  With this being a high priority in Google’s eyes, the timing matches most accurately.

We are seeing local changes with pack and one box for search queries that typically wouldn’t come to mind as a Google Bombing target.  But it is important to remember that however Google fixes it will be done algorithmically, so they are not targeting specific words that could trigger these poor crowd sourced terms, but rather looking at it from an algo point of view to prevent it from happening regardless of what term or location is used… so the same fix would apply to everything, not just the select few that are showing up now.

If we look back to when Google originally had Google bombing issues, most infamously the “miserable failure” example, they dealt with the issue algorithmically, rather than hand editing to prevent individual attempts.  And Google Maps confirms this is the technology they will be employing to prevent this from happening in their own results.

None of the above?

Of course, Google does like to keep everyone on their toes when it comes to their algorithms, so there is the possibility that it isn’t related to anything aside from normal signal updates that adjusted the number of results displaying packs and one boxes, but it is coincidentally happening in a similar time frame.

I have reached out to Google and I will update with any additional information.