Does Prominence Trump Proximity? Local SEO Observations From The Field

I decided to try a little Local SEO field test and searched Google for “pi attorney boston”. Check out the results:

You’ll notice that despite being over five miles away from the Agganis Arena, where the Terrier and Wolverine fans had gathered, Glassman was showing up #1 in the Local Pack.

Yet, while writing this at Logan Airport, about three miles from Glassman, Glassman is no longer number one for this search, losing out to Michael Kelly Injury Lawyers, who are < two miles from here:

Here’s what I think is going on here:

I noticed Glassman billboards around Fenway earlier in the day. I am guessing Glassman had started an ad blitz sometime over the past month. Check out Google Trends for them and two of the other firms:

I wouldn’t be surprised if a few people at the hockey arena Googled Glassman from the arena. Perhaps it was some of the BU Terriers as they were definitely on the receiving end of much abuse from Michigan, but I digress.

This would probably send Google signals about Glassman’s “prominence”.

I forgot to check the suggested search results from the arena, but look at what I get today when I search “personal injury attorneys boston”:

Maybe all the billboard bling at the arena made people curious about how much the guy makes. These queries and clicks to his site and GBP, likely influenced his rankings for people located near the arena while searching, even though there were relevant firms considerably closer to Agganis. Check out this result for “personal injury lawyers near Agganis Arena”:

As best I can tell, Glassman doesn’t advertise at the airport, nor do any other PI firms, so perhaps as the Prominence signals reverted to normal, the Proximity signals took over.

If this is what is happening, a big “if” of course, I’d say this is a pretty clear signal Prominence trumps Proximity when it comes to Local Pack rankings.

We’d have to do a lot more testing in various geos and categories to have more confidence in this, but given everything I’ve experienced in Local SEO, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.