4 min read
Local SEO has a evidence problem, and the industry has largely agreed not to mention it. Citations, NAP consistency, review velocity, posting frequency, category selection — there are confident percentages attached to all of them. Almost none of those percentages come from measuring an outcome.
This matters commercially, not philosophically. You are being asked to pay for work on the strength of numbers, and you are entitled to know which numbers are measurements and which are opinions that have been rounded into the shape of measurements.
What Google actually publishes
Google’s own documentation on local ranking is one sentence long in the part that matters: “Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity.”
That is the whole published list. Not citations. Not NAP consistency across directories. Not how often you post. Google elaborates that prominence draws on information from across the web — links, articles, directories — but it never quantifies any of it, and it never names the specific tactics the industry sells.
There is one piece of genuinely documented advice that gets misquoted constantly. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results. That is about completeness inside your Business Profile. It is not a statement about consistency across the web, which is a different claim entirely.
Where the industry’s numbers come from
The most-cited source in local SEO is an annual ranking-factors study. Here is how it is produced, in its own words: a group of local search practitioners is invited to complete a survey, weighting and scoring roughly 187 factors.
47practitioners surveyed in the best-known local ranking factors study — which states plainly that none of them have special access to the internal workings of Google’s local search algorithm.
That is expert opinion aggregation. It is genuinely useful as a read on what experienced practitioners believe, and the people who publish it are honest about what it is. The dishonesty happens downstream, when an agency turns “47 practitioners ranked this seventh” into “studies show this drives 12% of local ranking.”
We also looked for peer-reviewed work measuring the effect of NAP consistency on local ranking or on inclusion in AI answers. There is none.
What we still do, and why
None of this makes the work pointless. It changes the reason we give for doing it.
- NAP consistency — because entity resolution is a confidence problem, and contradictory records lower confidence. That is a mechanism argument, not a measured effect.
- Google Business Profile completeness — because this one is documented by Google, and because it is free and most competitors have not finished it.
- Real reviews from real customers — because they are read by buyers whether or not they move a ranking, and because the alternative is fraud.
- Structured data — because it removes ambiguity for machines. Note that Google says explicitly it is not required for AI search and is not a ranking factor. We do it anyway; we just do not sell it as a lever.
- Measuring across a map — because a single local rank number averages a thing that has no meaningful average. See rank grid.
What we will not tell you
- That any of the above is worth a specific percentage of your local ranking.
- That we can predict how long it takes, beyond a range with an honest error bar on it.
- That a competitor outranks you because of one identifiable thing. Distance alone explains a great deal of local ranking, and no amount of work changes where your building is.
- That there is a number of citations, reviews or posts that produces a result.
How to hear the difference in a sales call
Three questions, and you can ask them of us as easily as of anyone else.
- “Where does that number come from?” A study, a survey of opinion, or a vendor’s marketing page are three very different answers.
- “What would have to be true for this not to work?” Anyone who cannot answer has not thought about it, or is not telling you.
- “What are you measuring that you do not control?” Leading indicators you can watch monthly are worth more than a guarantee nobody can honour.
The uncomfortable version of this article is that a lot of local SEO is defensible practice resting on plausible mechanism rather than proven effect. We would rather say that out loud than quote you a number we cannot stand behind.
Sources: Google Business Profile Help, improve your local ranking on Google · Whitespark, Local Search Ranking Factors · Google, AI optimization guide. All checked 29 August 2026.
Definitions: NAP consistency, local pack, Google Business Profile. Our commitments are published in full on the About page.