The local pack is the block of business listings, with a map, that Google shows at the top of the results when it detects local intent in a query.
The listings in it come from Google Business Profile profiles, not from a website's pages. If the profile does not exist or is not verified you do not get in, and no amount of work on the site makes up for it. It is the first thing to check, before spending an hour on anything else.
What is inside a local pack
A listing shows the business name, the average rating with the number of reviews, the primary category, the address, the opening hours and buttons to call, get directions or open the website. Above the listings there is a map with pins; below them, a "More places" link that leads to the local finder, the extended list of businesses that match that search.
Google labels the block sometimes "Places" and sometimes "Businesses", and the label is not chosen by whoever appears in it. The level of detail changes too: in packs for schools and public services almost all the contact section disappears, while in other sectors each listing gets an image and a line pulled from reviews, what the industry calls a local justification. What applies to the rest of the SERP applies to the local pack: the format is not stable and has to be checked query by query.
Three listings is the norm, not the rule
The number three has become part of the format's name, which is why it is still called the 3-pack. It is not a fixed rule, though: packs with fewer than three listings exist, and the block can grow to make room for ads.
On that last point Google's documentation is explicit. The guide on local ads says that on Search these formats "can appear as independent ad units or embedded ads within organic modules", and that when the user opens the extended list with "More places", ads are shown alongside the other listings, "clearly marked as 'Sponsored'". Inside or next to a local block, then, there can be positions you cannot win by working on the profile.
A separate case is the Local Services Ads box, recognisable by the "Google Guaranteed" badge and common for plumbers, electricians, locksmiths and other emergency trades. It looks like a local pack, but it is an advertising product with its own selection and bidding system.
| Format | Where the results come from | How many listings | How you get in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local pack | Google Business Profile profiles | Usually three, sometimes fewer | Verified profile and local signals |
| Local finder ("More places") | The same profiles, extended list | Dozens, scrollable | The same factors, with more space available |
| Google Maps | The same profiles, map interface | Depends on zoom and the area in view | The same factors, ranked on the visible area |
| Local Services Ads | Google Ads with "Google Guaranteed" verification | Variable, above everything else | Budget, category, response times, verification |
When Google decides a search is local
The block only appears if Google reads the query as local, and that happens in three cases. When the search contains the name of a town, street or neighbourhood: "bakery Shoreditch". When it contains "near me" or a synonym. And when it is generic but describes something people usually buy close to home, such as "bakery": there Google uses the location it already knows for the searcher. The third case is the most common, and it is also what makes reading search intent less obvious than it looks, because the same word can lead to a local pack or to ten blue links depending on who types it.
The weight of physical location is also explained by the device. According to Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report, in May 2025 UK adults spent most of their time online on a smartphone: 75% of online time for men and 79% for women, against 15% and 8% on a computer. Most local searches therefore come from a device that hands Google a set of coordinates, not the name of a town.
What decides who gets in
Google gives the short answer. In the Google Business Profile guide to local ranking it says that "local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity": how well the profile matches what the user is looking for, how far the business is from them and how well known it is. On the third point the same page specifies that it is "based on info like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have", which ties local prominence to a stock of backlinks and citations built outside the profile.
The same page settles an argument that comes up in every proposal: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."
On the signals that really move positions, the most quoted study is still Whitespark's Local Search Ranking Factors, edited by Darren Shaw, whose 2026 edition came out on 6 November 2025: 47 local search specialists weighted 187 factors. It is an opinion survey of a mostly North American sample, not a measurement of the algorithm, and should be read with that limit in mind. At the top of the ranking for the local pack are, in order, the primary category of the profile, the distance between the address and the exact point the search comes from, keywords in the business name, a physical address inside the boundaries of the town searched for, and being open at the time someone searches.
Lined up, those five factors tell anyone selling optimisation by the hour something uncomfortable: half the list cannot be touched, and part of the rest can be sorted in an afternoon.
| Factor | What it measures | Room for action |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category of the profile | The first category chosen when the listing was created | High: it can be changed from the dashboard in minutes |
| Distance from the search point | How close you are to the searcher at that moment | None |
| Keywords in the business name | Whether the trading name contains the searched terms | Low: the name must stay the real one |
| Physical address in the town searched | Whether the premises fall inside the boundaries Google assigns to that town | None, short of moving or opening a second location |
| Business open at the time of the search | Whether the stated opening hours cover the time of the query | High: it depends on the hours, including special hours |
| Number and freshness of reviews | Number of reviews with text and how steadily they arrive | Medium: it can be worked on, but slowly |
The rest of the work is what goes into a local SEO strategy: complete the profile, keep the hours accurate, collect reviews steadily rather than in waves, and look after citations with an identical name, address and phone number everywhere.
"We're number one in the local pack" is a claim with no point of measurement
In the local pack there is no position 1. The order changes with the searcher's coordinates: the same query run from two neighbourhoods of the same city returns two different packs, and a business that appears on one side of a street can vanish from the other. An agency sending you a screenshot with your listing on top is showing you a single measurement taken from a single point, often its own office.
That is why in local search you do not measure a ranking, you measure coverage: you choose the area you care about, repeat the same search from dozens of points laid out in a grid and look at how much of that area puts the listing in the top three. Local Falcon, BrightLocal's Local Rank Tracker and Semrush's Map Rank Tracker all do this. Alongside the grid go the profile's performance data, views, calls and direction requests, which are the only part that turns into customers. It is how we set up measurement in our local SEO projects.
A decision made before the website exists
The local pack is the only place in search where a choice made outside marketing weighs more than anything written afterwards: where you leased the shop or office. An address inside the right town boundaries, and close to where demand comes from, is worth more than months of work on the profile. For anyone opening a business, signing the lease is already a visibility decision, taken months before anyone thinks about a website.
Local pack FAQs
Usually three, hence the name 3-pack, but the number is not guaranteed: there are packs with fewer listings, and the block can grow to host local ads, which the Google Ads documentation describes as formats that can also appear inside organic modules, marked as Sponsored.
Yes. The listings come from the Google Business Profile, which works without a website too. A site is still useful because the business's prominence also depends on how many websites mention and link to it, but it is not a condition for appearing.
Yes, by registering as a service-area business. You still need an address to create and verify the profile, even a home address, and Google asks you to hide it when there is no staffed office. In practice, businesses with a visible address tend to rank ahead of those that hide it.
No. They draw on the same profiles but are two different interfaces: the local pack is the block inside the results page, Maps is the map application, where the order also depends on the area in view and the zoom level. In between sits the local finder, the extended list that opens from the More places link.
There is no fixed wait. A newly verified listing can appear straight away in an uncrowded market, because distance and category count from day one. In competitive categories the time is taken up by signals that build over time, reviews first of all.
