Guide
The Google map pack
The three businesses with a map, above the ordinary results. It is where most local searches are decided, it is fed by your profile rather than your website, and getting into it is the fastest-moving work in SEO.
By Hamza Rivera
Short answer: The map pack is the block of three business listings with a map that Google shows above the ordinary results for local searches. Google names relevance, prominence and distance as the factors, and the listings come mostly from Google Business Profiles. Category, services, hours, reviews and consistent details are the work that moves it.
and a large share of people never scroll past them.
The map pack is the block of three business listings with a map that Google shows above the blue links whenever a search looks local. It is also called the local pack or the 3-pack. It is chosen almost entirely from Google Business Profiles, which is why a business with an excellent website can be missing from it while a competitor with a poor one sits at the top.
The local pack, the map pack and Google Maps
The local pack and the map pack are two names for one thing: the block of three listings with a map on the ordinary search results page. People also call it the 3-pack. It appears when Google decides a search is local, which includes searches with no town in them at all, such as "plumber" or "dentist open now".
Three surfaces draw on the same Business Profiles, and they are worth telling apart because people check one and assume the others match.
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The local pack
Three listings on the results page, with the map above them. This is where most local searches end, because the three are the first businesses a searcher sees with a phone number and a route one tap away.
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The full list behind it
The "more places" or "more businesses" link under the pack opens a longer list with its own map, sometimes called the local finder. Fourth place in that list is one tap further away than the pack, and far fewer people make the tap.
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Google Maps
A search inside the Maps app. The same three factors decide the order, but the map the searcher is looking at changes what counts as near, so the order can differ from the pack for the same words.
Paid listings can appear above or among them, marked as sponsored. Those are bought through Google's advertising, and nothing on this page affects them.
The three things that decide it
Google names relevance, prominence and distance. They are not equal, and the order below is the order they are worth working on for a business that is not in the pack today.
- 1
Relevance
How well the listing matches what was typed. This is the one you control most directly and the one most businesses leave half-done: the primary category, the secondary categories, the services list, and whether the profile says what the business actually does in the words customers use.
- 2
Prominence
How well known the business is. Reviews and their recency, mentions across the web, consistent listings, and how the website itself performs. This is the slowest to move and the one that compounds.
- 3
Distance
How far the business is from the searcher. You cannot change it and it is not fixed either: the pack a customer sees changes street by street, which is why checking your ranking from your own office tells you almost nothing about what anybody else sees.
The work that moves it
All of this is relevance, which is the half you control. None of it needs a developer and most of it is an afternoon.
- Set the primary category to the one thing you most want to be found for. It filters the pack before anything else is considered.
- Add every other relevant category as a secondary, and fill the services list out completely in the words customers use.
- Decide the address question properly: visible if customers come to you, hidden with a declared service area if you go to them.
- Make the hours true, including the ones you are closed, because the open-now filter decides who appears for urgent searches.
- Point the website link at the page about the thing, not the home page.
- Add real photographs of the premises, the team and the work.
- Get reviews arriving steadily rather than in bursts, and reply to every one.
- Make the name, address and phone identical across the profile, the site and every directory.
- Check for edits the public has suggested and Google has quietly accepted.
How to check your position honestly
Distance is a ranking factor measured from the searcher, so the pack changes street by street. Checking from your own premises is the least representative place you could stand, and it is where almost everybody checks. Look from where your customers actually are, and treat any single number as one sample rather than as your ranking.
- Write down the three to five searches that bring you work, in the words customers use. "Emergency plumber" and "plumber" can return different packs.
- Pick points across the area you serve: your premises, each edge of the area, and the towns most of your customers come from. Five to ten points is enough for one location.
- Check each search from each point. On foot, that means a phone in that place with location on and a private window, so your own history does not colour the result. The quicker way is a rank tracker that checks by map coordinates, often called a grid or geo-grid check. Adding the town name to the search is not the same thing: it is a different search, and Google treats it as one.
- Record the position at every point, once a month, on the same day. The shape matters more than any one number: strong near the premises and absent two towns away tells you where the work is.
- Set the grid beside the profile's own calls and direction requests for the same month. The calls are what the positions are meant to predict, so the two should move together.
The numbers worth watching are in the profile itself: calls, direction requests and website clicks, month on month. Those are outcomes rather than positions, and they are the ones that reconcile with the phone ringing.
Where to go next
The same profile now feeds Google’s AI Mode, which can check a business’s availability for a customer and call it when the answer is not online. What it reads, and the profile setting that controls the calls, are in the Google AI Mode SEO guide.
Questions about the map pack
What is the Google map pack?
The block of three business listings with a map that appears above the ordinary blue links for searches with local intent. It is also called the local pack or the 3-pack. It is fed almost entirely by Google Business Profiles rather than by websites, which is why a business with a strong site can be missing from it while a competitor with a weak site is in it.
How do I rank in the map pack?
Google names three factors: relevance, prominence and distance. In practice, start with relevance because it is the one you control directly and the one most businesses leave half-finished: the primary category, the services list, and whether the profile describes the business in the words customers type. Then prominence, which is reviews and consistency and takes months.
Why does my ranking look different to my customer’s?
Because distance is a factor and it is measured from the searcher, not from you. The pack changes street by street. Checking your position from your own premises is the least representative place you could stand, and it is where almost everybody checks.
How do I check my local pack ranking?
From several points across the area you serve, not from your own premises, because the pack is measured from where the searcher stands. Either search on a phone from those places, or use a rank tracker that checks by map coordinates rather than by town name. Adding the town to the search is a different search and gives a different answer.
How long does it take to get into the map pack?
Faster than ordinary search. Category and services changes can show within days and a complete profile usually settles within a few weeks. Reviews and prominence take months. It is the quickest-moving thing in local SEO, which is also why it is the first thing worth doing.
Do I need a physical address?
You need a real place of business, which is not the same as a public address. If you work at customers’ properties you should hide the address and declare a service area instead. What you cannot use is a mailbox, a virtual office or an address you do not operate from, and doing so is one of the most common causes of a suspension.
Does my website affect the map pack?
Yes, but less than people expect and less than the profile does. The site contributes to prominence and it decides what happens after the click. The three listings themselves are chosen mostly on the profile.
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