Why does my competitor's outdated website outrank mine?
Authority is always going to win here. You can have almost everything wrong, and as long as you have authority, you are the one that is going to get placed higher on the list. That is why a dated, clunky site can still sit above a prettier one. The rest of this page is just what that authority looks like in Google's world: how established you seem, the reviews behind you, your profile, and whether your pages match the way people search.
By Jacob Graber, founder of Blessed Arc Media · Updated
What does Google actually look at for local search results?
For the map pack and other local results, Google is mostly weighing three things: relevance, distance, and prominence. Relevance is whether you match the search. Distance is how close you are to the person searching. Prominence is the authority piece, how trusted and established you look online. That is why a Squarespace site from 2014 with a strong track record can beat a custom redesign with none. The custom site looks better. The old one has the authority Google is actually using.
Do Google reviews really matter that much?
Yes. Reviews are one of the loudest ways Google decides who has authority in your market. It is not only counting stars. It is looking at the full picture: how many you have, how recent they are, your overall rating, whether you respond, and whether the review text mentions the services and places people search for.
- Review count
- Recency
- Overall rating
- Owner responses
- Keywords in the review text
What else is your competitor probably doing right?
They are probably stacking more of that same authority: a complete Google Business Profile, plus service or city pages that match how people actually search. If the site itself needs work too, a website we design starts from $499. That gets the site side clean and clear. The ranking fight still comes back to who looks more established, not who has the prettier homepage.
Want a straight read on why they outrank you?
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