Google 10 Pack In Broad Web Results: Every Search Is Local Now?

Well not quite every search, but as Mike Blumenthal just told me, the 10 Pack is now appearing in a number of broad, non-geo phrase searches.

Some observations of the 10 pack’s behavior in Web results (the “Web Pack” anyone?):

1. In every query I have tried the 10 pack appears in position #4.  It still gets pushed down by indented results and universal results (e.g. news results in queries for “doctors”) but if you remove these results it seems to always be in position #4.
2. There is something going on with plurals v. singular queries.  For example, it shows up for “realtors” but not “white rock realtor“, “real estate agents” but not “real estate agent”, “tailor” but not “tailors”, “upholsterers” but not “upholsterer”.  In most cases it seems reasonable that a plural is more likely to be a locally oriented search (e.g. I am looking for a list of realtors) but it also seems that the singular versions would have a pretty good % of local intent as well.  My guess is we will see these differences fluctuate as GOOG settles on what it thinks the user really wants.

Right now there is a whole email chain of local seo folks picking this thing apart so if anything else interesting comes out of that I’ll let you know.

Here’s the big takeaway:

1. This is an acknowledgment by Google that local queries are a big % of web searches and they are working to make the local results more relevant – Mike B. seems to think this is a sign they have solved a lot of map spam problems
2. Well SEO’d SMB sites should get prepared for a lot more traffic as these broad queries are all super high volume
3. If these Web Packs start taking a lot of clicks from the Web results I would expect to see local results infiltrate a lot more queries and other parts of Google.  Maybe you are doing an image search for “roses” and you get a list of nearby florists?
4. This poses yet another challenge to IYPs, SMB aggregators and national brands.  As some of the main advertisers and organic rankers for these broad queries they perhaps stand the most to lose as the Web Pack sucks traffic away to the SMB sites.  While ultimately this is probably a good-for-the-user change, the cynic in me can’t help but imagine that somewhere in the Googleplex there is a presentation slide that shows how by sending more organic traffic to SMBs who mostly don’t advertise on Google, you increase the amount of clicks your advertisers have to buy and you increase the bid price.

Update: Just queried “burger” and got one.  Pretty cool