Now that the holidays have passed, we’re back in full swing at SEOmoz. I’m happy to offer another product announcement for PRO members. We’ve just shipped phase one of our support for Universal Search results, which includes data about local (a.k.a. places) results in Google search results. Whether it's a 7-pack or a blended result, if you care about local SERP results, it's often a pain to find out where you stand. We aim to help.
If you're not sure why visibility in blended or enhanced results are important, I highly recommend reading Dr. Pete's eye tracking study. His experiments nicely show that universal results that break up the page or results with enhanced elements can draw people's focus, even from strong organic results at the top of the page.
As I noted, this first phase rolls out local results for Google. In the coming weeks we plan to add other types of results, including video, images, shopping, news. We are also looking to incorporate site links (1-box results) at some point. We debated whether to wait until we had the other types of universal results in place before launching, but decided to ship in this limited fashion so we can get some feedback from all of you to help us make it better as we build more capabilities.
Here’s a quick rundown of what we've added:
See Which of Your Keywords Contain Local Results in the SERP
The first change you may notice is on the Ranking Overview page. If we saw a 7-pack or blended local result in the SERP for one of your keywords, you'll now see a small pushpin icons just below your ranking for that engine. There are two different states of the icon. If you are not in the universal result, you will just see the pushpin, but if you are included in the result, it will appear with happy little lines above it:
If you are in the competitive rankings view, you will see the vertical result show up in the column with your site's ranking.
A Quick Look at the Details
While in the overview, you can learn more about what is contained in the local result by hovering over the icon. This will offer up information including where the vertical is on the page, how many results it contains, and also a list of the results shown in the order presented:
More Information on the Rankings Detail Page
To see even more detail, click on the keyword or the "view ranking history for more details" link in the tooltip. Here, on the ranking details page, you will see universal results added to the ranking history graph, so you can see where universal results have been included over time and in which position (sorry, I don't yet have historical data for this sample campaign):
If you scroll further down, you will find the SERP overview, which includes blended and enhanced results alongside the organic results we saw in the SERP. As with organic results, your and your competitors' results will also be highlighted in color, so it's easy to get a feel for the overall visibility of you and your competitors on a search engine results page.
Here you can see a result where the local 7-pack pushes down what would normally look like a really strong #3 organic result below the fold:
Conversely, you can also see when you are dominant at the top of a SERP, which is common for branded terms:
For reference, here's what this looked like in the original SERP:
What's Up Next?
Our plans going forward are to push out support for more universal search types. Our order of priority at the moment is:
- Video
- Images
- Shopping
- News
- Site Links
We'd love to hear from you if you think this is out of order, or if there is a different type of result that you think is more important than the rest of these.
I’ll publish a quick follow-up post when new result types are added.
Please Let Us Know What You Think
As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank YOU! ... Best news I have had all day.
I can't wait to see the sitelinks feature. :)
Since I LIVE local and Google Places is what I do, I have avoided going Pro because I didn't think the toolset would help me much.
This may just be enough to push me over the edge.
Have been wanting to sign up for the community anyway.
Thanks team!
Linda
Linda,
you seomoz is a wicked tool and you get access to all kinds of great videos, etc. community is super helpful too.
What's the ETA on when this will be avilable?
Adding to the above question - How reliable this new Ranking Tracking will be? I mean, can we fully rely on this one or we should do some manual quality checks?
Are you also going to include Bing Places?
We don't have a timeline yet, but have it in our backlog to support this in the future.
As with any data source, I'd reccommend that you trust, but verify.
We are working hard to ensure that the data you recieve is as accurate as possible. With that in mind, there are always variations and fluctuations in what people see in SERPs. We test and experiment in an effort to show what the majority of people see in a SERP. There is also the risk of occasional changes to the SERP markup that could affect the results we present, though we test often to catch these.
With that said, if anything ever looks wonky, please let us know about it and we will look into it as quckly as possible.
Appreciate the question, but which capability are your asking about?
Just when I was beginning to wonder if Roger would remember our 12 month anniversary. Thanks Roger!
SEOMoz - you just became my hero!
Oooh, it looks like SEOmoz just picked up some new competitors... and at least one more potential pro member (me). I'm excited to give it a try this month and see if it warrants dropping another similar service.
Yet another great example of the way that SEOmoz LISTENS to customers Adam.
I love that you guys don't just go build what you think, but ask us what we want and need, then make it happen.
When Megan asked "What does your ideal Rank Tracker look like?" back in November, I was curious to see what changes might come out of the feedback, but didn't imagine such ambitious and comprehensive improvements might be on the horizon.
This on its own is pretty awesome, but combine it with all of the other little tweaks & improvements and you guys seriously just blew my mind! Can't wait for the FREE webinar to get a good look at my new toy toolset :) hmmm...strikethrough isn't working there.
(Yes, non-Pro Members can attend the webinar too, so those of you deciding whether you might want to go Pro can take a look for Free)
A big thank you to the whole team Adam...you've set the bar high for yourselves in 2012!
Sha
Thank you so much! As someone who works primarily with smaller companies who aim to rank in local results, this provides tremendous additional value for my Pro membership.
One question - will there be a way to specify a geography for local results?
Good question about selecting a geo. This would resolve the current lack of local results showing for generic (but inherently local) results such as "pizza". For most geos, a search for "pizza" would include local results. Right now, we won't show local results for that query because we don't know which city or region to collect for. However, we work well for any query that inlcudes a locale, such as "pizza seattle".
We don't support default selection of a geo yet, but we have given some thought to adding the ability to select a specific locale when choosing engines for a campaign. So instead of just selecting Google US, you would be able to select Google-US | Seattle. All SERP results would then be specific to the Seattle region.
This would work for up to 3 engines per campaign. Would this be useful?
In a word - 'yes'... just don't forget us foreigners (UK) ;)
That would be great, but remember to check the country of visit of your Pro members... therefore I remind you to extend this option to all Geos :)
A good reminder. We would definitley include local cities/regions across all of the countries we support. :)
Likewise here! :)
It would also be handy if you could set multiple geo locations, for businesses that have locations in multiple metro areas. It sounds simple if there is one location. But for businesses that have multiple locations across the US, reporting starts to sound pretty messy.
Maybe you could separate keywords that you want to rank nationally from the keywords that you want to set a specific city/zip focus? Example, relevant to the pizza joint. You could have 2 lists.... list one would contain keywords such as "seattle wa pizza", "pizza in seattle", "pizza delivery seattle". This list is ran on Google - US. Then another list could contain general keywords "pizza", "pizza delivery", "pizza place"... and you could set multiple locations that you want these to run (by city or zip...)?
In both cases it would be handy to see how you rank "Pure" or "Blended" in both instances.
Thanks for listening!
Great thoughts here! We will keep these ideas in mind when we look at adding the ability to define default regions.
Yes... having geographies from google locales would be great. Sitewire had a good point about needing to handle multiple for managing 'local businesses' across multiple cities. It's a great first step thogh. Kudos for getting the local stuff into the results. You made our job much easier for analyzing and reporting!
Great news!
But I don't see local results in my campaigns. Am I right - if I seletected e.g. google.at and there I put in a branded keyword with the town's name - I normally must see that pushpin icon (it is there in reallity in the universal and / or in the local result)?
Hi Petra,
Can you check the detail page for that keyword and let me know if you are seeing the universal result there? It's possible you won't see your local results in the ranking summary until this week's rankings update.
Feel free to email or DM me if you don't see the results on your detail page.
Hi Adam, on the detail pages it's ok. Then I wait until the next update that I can see it on the ranking report page, too.
Thank's!
Really great job, I was looking for a tool like this!
It'll be really helpful for me, I can't wait that you'll add video, images,...
Thank you guys!
Fantastic, except that's killed any chance of productivity today! Must go play...
Very cool tool! I love seeing all the local results at once when you hover over the icon. Thats great. As someone who has built their own keyword ranking tool - organic and local keyword rank checking (www.mykeywordrankings.com) I know how hard it is to display this information in a way that makes sense to all. Honestly - really nice work!
Good stuff guys.
Thanks for this great addition to your data set. Most of what I've worked on to date has been locally oriented and this really makes a huge difference for me.
I'm seeing results for a most of my campaigns, except for one. The update ran yesterday.
Originally I thought it was a Google.ca issue, but I have another couple of campaigns running both the .ca and the .com that are generating the local data.
Thanks, Duane.
I'm not sure exactly why that campaign is not showing local results yet, but if you send a note to [email protected] they will be able to help investigate.
Cool. Thanks Adam!
I have a client who's SERP entries have migrated to all 'local' style. I also track their competitors & the same applies to them. Now my rank reports look terrible because it says they're basically not ranked. Do we have a solution to generate a report that includes the actual rank of the local entry?
There isn't a solution yet, but it is high in our priority queue to build that functionality into the product. You can track this feature (and comment further) on our feature request forum.
https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/21226961-show-the-top-universal-ranking-position-and-top-overall-ranking-position-as-well-as-top-natural-rank
Was a nice post, thanks
Many of my clients are only interested in their ranking in the main organic listings. Due to the nature of their business they are not interested in where they rank for the local listings.If my client's site ranks at the No.1 organic position for a search that also shows 7 local listings in the SERPS, the SEOMoz ranking report shows their current position as 8th.
While this may be technically accurate it is unhelpful to me and my clients, giving them a false indication of their correct organic ranking.In order for me to give accurate ranking reports to my client I now have to find other ways to run non-personalised searches and report on them.
I think that there are likely to be many other pro members out there sending reports to their clients with misleading information as to their true position in the SERPS.
I suggest that the SEOMoz ranking report needs to clearly differentiate between local listings and organic listings. For example:
"car insurance london" 1st position (organic)
or
"car insurance london" 3rd position (local)
I look forward to seeing this being resolved as soon as possible
Thanks for the comment / request!
Just to clarify, we do not count the 7-pack toward the organic ranking position. So, for instance, if you rank 3rd organically, and there is a block of local results between the 2nd and 3rd organic result, the ranking we provide will still be #3. We separately call out that there is a universal result, and offer the ability to dig in and see where in the universal result your site is.
The only exception to this is for organic results enhanced with local results. You can see these called out in the ranking details, and are counted as organic results, since they are just organic results for which Google has decided to show local information.
Google does change how they present universal results every now and then, and while we test frequently to keep pace with changes, it is possible that we might misclassify a result on occasion. If you are seeing this happen, please let our help team know (help -at- seomoz.org) and they can help identify the problem and ensure that we address it.
Thanks Adam
I am seeing this and have reported it and yet still see it. I also doubt that I'm the only one seeing this although others may not yet realise it's a bug. I think you guys should look at this as a priority issue
This is most definitely a priority. If you have any specific examples, they would really help. Feel free to send them directly to me: adam -at- seomoz.org.
Thanks!
1. LOCAL Results – if 5 of us did a search for ‘seattle cooking school’ all around the country, because of IP locations, we’re all going to see very different results. Some might see 1 local result, others 3, 7, 10. How do you account for this? Seems the most accurate way would be to run the query via an IP located in Seattle. Also, in the results you show, would be nice to see the letters in the bubble as to where someone is ranked (A, B, C, etc.). Great enhancement!
Thanks for the feedback!
What you suggest is certainly true for local queries that do not contain a locale (such as a city name) directly in the query. But it appears that when the city name is in the query, the results look the same even from different locations. We'll continue to test this though.
As for showing the letter in the places pin, excellent suggestion!
This is great news. Most of my clients are hotels who battle it out in SERPs, places and merged listings on a daily basis. Thanks SEOMOZ. This is a big thumbs up fro me :-)
This is Great News. Thank You so much.
- Sajeet
Great new addition to the tool set - roll on video, images et al :)
Nice one, I know this is an area not many ranking trackers have investigated before good to see updates in this area =)
oh this could be really useful start to 2012 for one particular project that is getting slammed by local/universal.
Oh good effort seomoz. This will be a big help for future reports.
This looks brilliant! It's getting close to the point where I'm going to get a new membership.
And I'd thought I'd opened my last Christmas present! Interested to see that Google US seems to be returning local results where Google UK doesn't...
Hi Doug. Do you have any examples of UK results that should be showing local results but are not? We did test with some UK results, so am hoping to narrow this down further.
Thanks!
Yes, one of my keywords "web design in bristol" is showing the 7 local results in the Google US column, but not showing the same 8 local results that are also displayed in the Google Uk column.
It's odd, because it seems to be working ok for "search engine optimisation in bristol". Both Google US and Google UK show the 7 local results.
Happy to provide screenshots etc if you need em'.
Thanks, Doug.
Could you do me a favor and send this along to [email protected]? They are helping to track down anomoles and can spend some time investigating this one in particular.
Awesome new feature! Thank you SEOmoz!
This is gold.
Yea ive been working on something to detect diffrent verticls and local in the serps with a headless browser and using jQuery to pull the items out of the dom... its really hard though because they keep chanign the html
Anybody have any ideas for how you might detect QDF based on some signals from the serp page?
You've been quiet for a while ;)
Throwing some ideas - frequency of serp changing (but requires a lot of monitoring to catch the start of QDF on new queries)
Could have a database of "Likely sites" for QDF - if you see newspaper urls start to appear in a SERP, its possibly QDF (could grabs site urls from Google News, guess those are the mostly likely to pop into QDF positions?)
Certain queries are always likely to be affacted by QDF - sports team names, big events etc
Anything that has a "news for" section, which is easy to pull out of the html
Also maybe Hot Trends terms could be a good early warning of likely queries
If you want to run a long term test "london 2012" will definitely be changing a lot over this year. Its not QDF atm, but will be & will likely fluctuate in and out of QDF based on news spikes up til the Olympics
S
Thanks for the hard work! Excited to look into this!
it is great and only the start of more great stuff
It's all about local! Very excited to see the updates in action.
Also, you look like one of the cops from Super Troopers.
:)
This is fantastic! Thanks so much. Did I miss this, or is there a way to download the specific spot within the local results over time? It looks like the data is available in the pop up, but it would be great to be able to export or present this in some way to to report on the success of Local efforts.
Thanks!
You are correct in that the local results haven't been added to the exports yet. We are looking at adding these to the .csv soon (when we add some of the other universal results), thought the PDF may lag a bit.
Excellent news indeed!
Now we are talking! Can't wait to use these new features!
This is sweet. Thanks for a great feature for those of us who work with locally focused SMBs.
Will we need to wait for our next ranking update in order to see the local pin show up on the overall rankings report? Right now I only see the local pin if I drill down into "ranking history"
Good catch. I just verified that right now everyone should see the local results in the ranking detail, but the summary will only show the local results for those whose rankings were updated in the last few days. This means that a lot of you will need to wait for your next ranking update before you see the universal results in the ranking summary report.
What a bummer - it does not work unless you live in Seattle. My local businesses do not have locale in the keywords. Despite the fact that they do show up in local results for our region, it is not reflected in Moz report. Maybe, after the next update? Have my fingers crossed.
Sorry about this. In truth, it won't work in Seattle either unless a locale is included as part of the keyword. So "marks and spencer" won't return a local result, but "marks and spencer london" will.
We will be looking at the ability to add a default locale in the future, though I don't have a timeframe for you yet.
Thanks for the feedback!
Another great reason to keep renewing PRO :]