Google now matches local searches to businesses by meaning as well as exact words. That leaves even less reason to stuff keywords into a business name; accurate categories, a plain description, reviews and a clear website still decide.

What Google confirmed yesterday

Google confirmed yesterday that since early November it has been using a technique called neural matching to produce local results: the businesses shown with a map when someone searches for a service nearby.

Neural matching relates the words in a search to the ideas behind them.

Google first described using it in its main results last year. It now applies to local listings too, in every country and language.

People who watch local rankings had noticed listings moving around through November. This is at least part of the reason.

Nothing on your listing changed. What changed is how Google decides which searches your listing answers.

Matching meaning, not only words

Until November, a listing was most likely to appear when the searcher's words matched its name, its categories or its description.

With neural matching, Google can connect a search to a business that never used those words.

Someone searching for a place to get hiking boots resoled may be shown a shoe repair shop whose listing never mentions hiking boots.

It does not read minds, and it does not make a vague listing precise. It means the exact phrase matters less, and what the business actually is matters more.

What still decides local results

The fourth is where most listings go wrong. Categories tend to be picked in a hurry when a listing is claimed, and one a step away from what you do tells Google you are something else.

Business names with keywords in them

Look at the map for almost any trade and you will find listings named like advertisements: the company name followed by a service, a city, and sometimes the words best or 24 hours.

Google's guidelines say a listing's name should be the one the business uses in the real world: on its sign, its stationery and its website.

Adding keywords is not allowed. Listings that do it can be edited by Google, or suspended.

The practice spread because a name containing the search words seemed to help a listing match those searches. Matching by meaning weakens that reason, while the risk stays exactly where it was.

If your listing's name has grown extra words, take them out.

A name change can take a few days to be reviewed, which is a small price for a listing that matches your sign.

The description and the services list

Neural matching needs something to understand. On the listing, that is mostly the categories, the description, and the products or services you add.

Write the description the way you would explain the business to a new neighbour: what you do, who it is for, and where. Plain sentences carry more meaning than keywords separated by commas.

Fill in the services or products with the real range, including the jobs you want more of. Each entry is another honest statement of what the business is.

A worked example

A shoe repair shop in a downtown arcade had renamed its listing, following a competitor, to its own name followed by shoe repair, key cutting and purse repair.

In the spring, someone suggested an edit and Google changed the name back to the one on the sign. The owner restored the long version, and later had to restore it again.

Meanwhile the primary category was locksmith, chosen years ago because the shop cuts keys, and the description was one sentence about service since 1987.

The fix took an afternoon. The name went back to the one on the sign, and the primary category became shoe repair shop, with key cutting listed as a service.

The description now says what the shop repairs: heels, soles, zippers, handbags, leather jackets and hiking boots.

The website gained a page for each of those, with photographs of real work. None of it depended on neural matching, and all of it gives neural matching something to work with.

Your website still does the explaining

Google reads the website a listing links to, and a website can hold far more than any listing.

A page for each main service, written in the words customers use, is the clearest evidence of what you do. Matching by meaning works best when there is real meaning on the page.

A site that is a logo, a phone number and a slideshow gives Google little more than the name. That was a weakness before November, and it still is.

Do not chase the daily movements

Local results depend on where the searcher is standing, and they shift from day to day. A position checked from the office tells you about searches made from the office.

The Insights section of your listing shows the searches people used to find you. Looking at it this month may turn up phrases that appear nowhere on your listing.

What matters more than any position is whether enquiries keep arriving for the kinds of work you want.

What not to do in response

Changes like this invite the wrong kind of activity.

Do not stuff the description with every synonym for your trade. Matching by meaning makes them even less necessary, and a description written as a list reads badly to the people who see it.

Do not create extra listings for each service or town. The guidelines allow one listing per real location, and duplicates can be removed or suspended.

The counter-case

For some businesses this changes very little. A shop whose name already says what it does, in a town with two competitors, was matching its searches perfectly well.

It changes nothing about distance, either. A business twenty minutes from the searcher is unlikely to be shown ahead of one around the corner because its description is better written.

And it does not rescue a listing that is wrong: a poor category, old hours, no reviews. Get the basics right, write plainly, and keep the name as it appears on your sign.

This month

  1. Read your listing as a stranger would.
  2. Take keywords out of the business name.
  3. Check the primary category is the closest fit.
  4. Rewrite the description in plain sentences.
  5. Fill in services or products with the real range.
  6. Look at the searches in Insights.
  7. Make the website say the same things.

Step three matters most. The primary category is Google's own vocabulary for what a business is, and no amount of careful wording elsewhere makes up for the wrong one.

How these searches behave in the weeks before Christmas is covered in holiday shoppers searching near me.

Frequently asked questions

What did Google change in local search?

Since early November, Google has used neural matching for local results, relating the words in a search to the ideas behind them rather than relying only on exact words.

Do I need to change my listing?

Nothing is required, but it is a good moment to check the name, primary category, description and services, since those give the matching something accurate to work with.

Should my business name include keywords?

No. Google's guidelines require the name you use in the real world, and listings with added keywords can be edited or suspended. Matching by meaning leaves even less reason to try.

What still decides local results?

Distance, relevance and prominence, as before. Your categories, description, services, reviews and website are what Google judges relevance and prominence by.

Why did my map position change in November?

Local results shift daily and depend on where the searcher is. Some of November's movement came from this change, so watch enquiries rather than daily positions.

Does my website matter for map results?

Yes. Google reads the site your listing links to, and a page for each main service, in customers' own words, is the clearest evidence of what you do.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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