What is Local pack?
The local pack is the block of three business listings with a map that appears near the top of a local search result, above the ordinary web results.
The local pack is the block of three business listings with a map that appears near the top of a local search result, above the ordinary web results.
When someone searches for a service with local intent — a category plus a place, or anything the search engine reads as nearby — the result page usually leads with a map and three businesses. That block is the local pack, also called the map pack or the three-pack. Below it sits a link to more results, and below that the conventional organic listings.
Ranking in it is decided differently from ranking in the organic results. Google describes the factors as relevance, distance and prominence: how well the business matches the search, how close it is to the searcher, and how well known and well reviewed it is. Distance is weighted heavily enough that no amount of optimization will put a business into the pack for a search made forty minutes away.
That last point is what makes the local pack a per-location target rather than a per-city one. A business does not rank in the pack for a city; it ranks in the pack for searches made in particular parts of it, which is why rankings are measured on a grid rather than as a single position.
The three businesses in the pack take a disproportionate share of the clicks and calls on a local search, because they sit above everything else and offer a phone number and directions without a second click. Fourth place is a long way from third.
Judging your position by searching your own business. Your results are skewed by your location and your search history — what you see is not what a prospective customer across town sees.
Local pack is part of local search
Understanding the term is the easy half. The service page describes what the work actually involves, and the free assessment says whether it is the thing your business should be spending on next — which is frequently a different question.
Things that come up alongside it
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