New Google Local Pack Showing ‘Best’ Filter

Google is making yet another attempt to improve the quality of search results — this time in the local snack pack. It seems that when searchers query keyword phrases containing superlatives like best, great and awesome is triggering a filter that shows results with 4.0+ ratings. It’s also changing the font from gray to red.

Check it out:

And here’s a look at the local pack results without the adjectives:

We’ll keep an eye on this for a while, but as of right now, there are certain words that aren’t triggering the filter, like super, wonderful, exquisite, fantastic, fabulous and so on.

In addition to those listed above, words that are triggering the filter include excellent, good and outstanding.

It doesn’t look like the results are showing up in order, meaning a 3.9 rating can be listed above a 4.2 rating, which makes us wonder if they’re ranked by the number of reviews rather than the rankings themselves.

And in case you’re wondering (because I sure was!), the filter isn’t triggered in reverse — meaning keyword phrases using adjectives like terrible, awful and worst do not show results with bad reviews. At least not yet.

Originally published at www.beckseocopywriting.ca on April 25, 2017.