Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.
Chase Reiner: Local search now paid for in big cities. Thoughts?
Suraj Gadage: +Chase Reiner ; Google Adwords has confirmed that this is a new beta program called home service ads and is in San Francisco only. ;
Coming back to your question, this is going to be a massive shake up for local SEO. Interesting thing to observe here is we don't see any local one box results below the sponsored results. So my gut feelings say that in the future, it may take over maps results provided for a given local search query there are businesses that qualify for home service ads. ;
Google has already explained in their article about how businesses qualify for home service ads. Primarily they do background checks, license checks, insurance checks, reputation assessment and mystery shopping. You can read more about this over here: https://support.google.com/ads/answer/6230381?hl=en&ref_topic=6250184
Looking at Google's explanation on why they want to display these ads are simply to help searchers provide peace of mind when booking a professional.
Now, as a local business should I be worried about?
Honestly speaking, NO. If I can meet the criteria set by Google then I can participate in the Home Service ads program. ;Also, Google has explicitly mentioned that Home Service ads go through a screening process, and they can't pay to be ranked higher in the ad units.
Hope this helps!
Tim Capper: http://onlineownership.com/google-testing-home-serviced-business-in-pay-to-play-marketplace/
Jim Munro: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:35:56 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/local_search_now_paid_for_in_big_cities +Chase Reiner
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Local search now paid for in big cities. Thoughts?
