Google Local Ranking

[epep]

I play around with local listings for clients from time to time. I think its important not only to optimize websites and listings for people that search with local attributes within search phrases (e.g. "Chiropractor, Minneapolis, MN"), but also for the local/map engines (Keyword: "Chiropractor" Location: "Minneapolis, MN"). Y!'s local listing, as far as I can tell, sorts results purely by geographic distance from the locality searched. Sometimes people will enter their home address, but I'm willing to bet that most people search by the city that they're interested in. Long story short, those businesses that are closest to the "center" of the given city name will be listed first. Looks like real estate values of businesses in the heart of each city just went up.

Google, on the contrary, uses some relevancy factors in addition to geographic distance from the search locality. Here's their posting regarding this:

How does Google Maps rank business listings?

All Google search results are based primarily on relevance, and Google Maps listings are no different. Google Maps ranks business listings based on their relevance to the search terms entered, along with geographic distance (where indicated) and other factors. Sometimes our search technology decides that a business that's farther away from your location is more likely to have what you're looking for than a business that's closer.

Google Maps and the Local Business Center are a free service, so there's no way to request or pay for a better ranking. We also can't provide additional details about our ranking algorithm. We do our best to keep the details of the algorithm confidential in order to make the ranking system as fair as possible for everyone.

Albeit generally unhelpful, it's nice that they at least give an idea of what they're doing. Has anyone seen any articles or posting specifically regarding what factors that play into Google's relevancy factors for the local engine? Are these based solely on the categories selected and the description of services entered in the local business center? Do the contents of the linked websites play any role?

Basically just looking to start a conversation about ranking on Google's local engine. Please don't litter this thread with links to your own articles that generally deal with Local Search optimization unless it specifically discusses ranking.

EP

[Webnauts]

You can find top tips for ranking in the local search in my article: Local Search Optimization Tips - SEO Workers
Even if it is my own article that deals with Local Search optimization, it is exclusively about ranking.

If you think not, let me know so I can ask the mods to delete this post.

[epep]

I guess the information that I am looking for deals more specifically with the actual ranking of listings within the Google Local listings service (Google Maps), rather than local search generally. I agree with your assertions in your article, but it isn't specifically what I was asking.

For example, what caused A to be listed before B, and more interestingly, what caused G to be listed before H (this is the listing that isn't based upon geometric distance from the center of the specified town) in the following search result:

Chiropractor loc: Mankato Minnesota - Google Maps

EP