Why does Google use Geography so literally?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Yasser Mohamed: If you do a local business search for "carpet cleaning melbourne" you will see all the ; businesses listed on the first page are located in the CBD of Melbourne, then as you move to page 2-3 you will see that the businesses 10-15km are listed, then pages 4-5 are 20km, etc. Why does Google use Geography so literally? It used to be that the term "Melbourne" meant Greater Melbourne - especially when you are a service area business and you have your service area set as such! Now it seems to be based on postcode and your distance from it. ; I have created Geo content to try to overcome this but nothing seems to work. Are service area businesses disadvantaged in local search? I am aware of other cleaners hiring Marketers/SEO's in the CBD and using their office address as their cleaning business address just so that they can rank locally in Melbourne! ; I am not prepared to go to these extremes. What else can I do to improve local ranking - I have lots of reviews, active G+ & other social media, local citations, localised Geo content, on page SEO with Geo keywords, videos.....
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  Suraj Gadage: +Yasser Mohamed ;It's a tough one. Google usually takes searcher location into consideration and serves the results. Which really makes sense because as a user I would like to find the solution near me.
  
  Having said that, as a service-area business, you only have a couple options when it comes to local SEO. I know you have no local addresses, but if you want to get on the local one box results, then see if you have a local business partner(s) and if you could use their home address to the area that you service and create local listings.
  
  I would be curious to see what other experts have to say about.
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  Yasser Mohamed: Thanks +Suraj Gadage even though I am a service area business, my address is in Greater Melbourne and only 14KM from the CBD so I really am "local" to Melbourne.
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  Jim Munro: From the expert panel in this week's SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:13:56 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/why_does_google_use_geography_so_literally +Yasser Mohamed
  
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  Yasser Mohamed: +Tim Capper thank you for your input - I am ranking 4 organically on desktop and 5 on mobile. ; The top 3 businesses ranking organically are way down on page 3-4 locally. I am ranking 1 locally in other areas, just not Melbourne.