Google Culling Small Businesses By Reducing Local 7 Pack to 3

Google has cut the 7 pack local results to a 3 pack. Any local business owners get knocked out of Google? This change does occur at the same time Google appears to be heavily promoting adwords vouchers. An orchestrated effort to make small business owners join the pay to play program?

 

As a user, I think this step is beneficial. As a business owner, I would be kind of pissed. But if you are one of the top 3, then less competition for you

 

It's obvious, 4 out of 7 will be knocked out from the local results. And now people have to compete for the three positions and it's quite difficult.

 

Google Adwords does not bring any good results these days. How many of you will agree with me on this ? Sorry for offending anyone, but you will have to set up Adwords in a very strict budget environment. Otherwise you will end up exhausting your monthly/daily budget in a blink of eye.

 

I think this is a good thing, as they displayed too much before and it wasn't special to rank in the local results. Anyone who tried, most likely made it there. Now, business owners will have to try harder and this might influence them to purchase SEO services.. might be good.. am I wrong for thinking this?

 

Probably a way for Google to increase advertising revenue. When I launch a new site, I usually sign up to Google Webmaster Tools. And when Google sandboxes the site (buries it in the rankings for no reason), within 2 weeks Google will send me an email trying to get me to buy advertising.

Every move Google makes is about increasing revenue. Not one single thing the company does is for the benefit of internet users. Limiting results, burying sites in the results, etc., all has the effect of killing traffic and the only way to replace that traffic is to pay Google for advertising (which is ridiculously expensive).

 

This is going to be tough for small businesses. Ultimately I think it will result in more small businesses looking to adwords for any kind of visibility. Additionally the pacs that are shown don't have street addresses. There is a call button on mobile and no phone number on desktops. With a call button: the next step is charging for calls.

Some very recent heat map research on the issue showing where people click can be found on the MOZ blog here. If one is looking to combine links and local social visibility here is an alternative to try and get local eyeballs through the web and in person.

This change will be challenging for local businesses