Google Says There Are Three Local Ranking Factors. Two of Them Are Fixed.

Google publishes how local search ranking works. Not a leak, not an SEO theory: a help page that names three factors and says what each one means. Almost nobody in the trades or the clinics we work with has read it, and the agencies selling local SEO rarely quote it, because what it says is inconvenient.

The three factors are relevance, distance and prominence. Google defines them like this:

• Relevance is "how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for".
• Distance is "how far each business is from the customer who's searching".
• Prominence "means how well-known a business is", and depends partly on how many websites link to you and how many reviews you have.

Distance is geography. You cannot change it without moving. So of the three published factors, one is fixed, one is slow, and one is a form you can fill in properly this afternoon. Guess which one most businesses have got wrong.

Google is also blunt about the alternative: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."

The profile is the relevance lever, and it is a form

Relevance is decided mostly by what your profile says. Google asks for complete, detailed information precisely so it can match you to searches. Five fields do most of the work, and each one has a published rule that people break.

1. The business name has to be your actual name

This is the rule broken most often and punished hardest. Google's guidelines say "Your name should reflect your business's real-world name", the one on your signage and your paperwork. And then, plainly: "Including unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted".

So "Smith Plumbing" is a business name. "Smith Plumbing | Emergency Plumber Croydon | 24 Hour" is a keyword list, and a competitor can report it in about forty seconds. Taglines, phone numbers, URLs, store codes and opening hours do not belong in the name field.

It does work in the short term, which is why people do it. It also puts your profile one report away from suspension, and a suspended profile takes weeks to reinstate while your competitors keep trading.

2. Categories are what you are, not what you do

Google's test for the category field is a sentence you complete: "Select categories that complete the statement: 'This business IS a'". Then it says to "Use as few categories as possible to describe your overall core business", and "Do not use categories solely as keywords or to describe attributes of your business."

The primary category carries the most weight, and it is the field most worth arguing about internally. A physiotherapist who also does sports massage is a Physiotherapist first. Setting the primary to Massage Therapist because the search volume looks bigger is how a clinic ends up ranking for the lower value enquiry and losing the higher one.

Pick the primary category that matches the enquiry you most want. Add secondary categories for the genuine other things you are. Stop there.

3. The address rule that catches mobile businesses

If you go to customers rather than the other way round, you are a service area business, and the rules are specific.

One profile for your central location. Hide the address: Google says "you should hide your business address from customers". And the service area has a published limit: it "shouldn't extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based".

Two hours of driving, not two hours of ambition. A decorator in Reading listing a service area covering Bristol, Birmingham and London is not casting a wider net; they are filing a profile that does not match the guidelines.

Three things are flatly ineligible, and all three get tried:

• P.O. boxes and remote mailboxes. "P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations aren't acceptable."
• Virtual offices. A rented mailing address where you do not actually work is not eligible for a profile at all.
• Co-working desks, unless "that office maintains clear signage" and the other conditions are met. A hot desk in a shared building is not a location.

And one profile per location. "Do not create more than one page for each location of your business." Duplicates split your reviews across two profiles and neither ranks as well as one would have.

4. Hours, including the ones nobody updates

Opening hours are a relevance signal and a trust signal at the same time. Google surfaces "open now" filters; a profile with no hours is invisible to them.

The part that gets skipped is special hours. Christmas Day 2026 is a Friday, with the Boxing Day substitute on Monday 28 December and New Year's Day on Friday 1 January 2027. Set those dates on the profile in November, along with any days you are closed in between. The alternative is a profile that says you are open while the phone rings out, which is the worst possible version of being closed. We went through the rest of that gap in the enquiries that arrive while you are closed.

5. Everything else on the profile, filled in

Services, attributes, the description, the website link, photographs. None of these is a trick; they are the detail Google says it uses to decide what you match.

The website link is the one with a second job. It is the step between a profile and an enquiry, and the page it lands on decides whether the click is worth anything. A profile that ranks beautifully and sends people to a homepage with no phone number above the fold has converted nothing.

Prominence is reviews and links, and it is slow

Google is explicit that prominence depends on how many sites link to you and how many reviews you have: "More reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking."

Which is true and gets misread as a licence to game it. Two things to be clear about.

Ask every customer, every time, with a link. The reason most small businesses have eleven reviews and their competitor has two hundred is not that the competitor is better. It is that asking is part of their process and an afterthought in yours. A review request that goes out automatically after a job, with a direct link to the profile, is the single highest return piece of automation a local business can set up.

Do not buy them, incentivise them, or write them. Fake reviews are against Google's policies and, since the consumer provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act came into force in April 2025, against UK law. The Competition and Markets Authority can now fine a business directly, up to £300,000 or 10% of global turnover, whichever is higher. It is a bad bet on both counts.

Reply to the reviews you get, including the bad ones. Google says replying "shows customers that the business values their feedback". It also means the next person reading a one star review sees an answer rather than silence.

What this means if distance is against you

Here is the uncomfortable arithmetic. If a customer in a town centre searches for a plumber and you are eight miles out, the plumber on the high street has an advantage you cannot buy, fill in or optimise away.

What you can do is win on the other two. Be a precise match for a specific enquiry rather than a vague match for a broad one. A profile that is unambiguously "boiler repair" with ninety reviews beats a profile that is loosely "plumber" with nine, from further away, more often than people expect.

The practical version: pick the enquiry you most want, make the profile say exactly that, and then systematically out-review everybody in your category. That is the whole strategy, and it costs nothing but discipline.

Frequently asked questions

What are Google's local ranking factors?

Relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your profile matches the search, distance is how far you are from the searcher, and prominence is how well known you are, including reviews and links from other sites.

Can I pay Google to rank higher locally?

No. Google's own page says "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." You can pay for Local Services Ads and for search ads, which appear above the local results but are labelled as ads and are a separate thing.

Can I put keywords in my Google business name?

No. Google requires the name to reflect your real-world business name and says unnecessary information is not permitted. It works until somebody reports it, and then the profile is suspended.

How big can my service area be?

Google says it should not extend farther than about two hours of driving time from where your business is based. Larger areas may be appropriate for some businesses, but two hours is the published guide.

Can I use a virtual office address?

No. A rented mailing address where you do not operate is not eligible for a Business Profile. Nor are P.O. boxes or remote mailboxes.

How many reviews do I need?

More than the businesses currently above you, which is a number you can go and count this afternoon. There is no threshold, and the comparison that matters is with your own category in your own area.

Does my website still matter if I have a Google Business Profile?

Yes, in two ways. Links from other websites feed prominence, and the profile sends its clicks to your site, where the enquiry either happens or does not. The profile gets you found; the website converts.

The short version

• Three published factors: relevance, distance, prominence. Distance is fixed.
• The name field is your real name. Keywords there risk suspension.
• The primary category should match the enquiry you most want.
• Service area businesses: hide the address, stay inside about two hours' drive.
• Set your Christmas special hours in November.
• Ask for a review after every job, automatically. Never buy one.

Both quoted pages are Google's own: the guidelines for representing your business on Google and how to improve your local ranking. They change, so check them rather than taking our word for it.

If the profile is right and the website it points at is the weak link, that is what the Managed Website Service is for. If the enquiries are arriving and then getting lost, read why small businesses need a CRM.