We're going LSRFing again! Continuing our deep dive into the 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors! This week I'm breaking down the biggest signal changes, new factors, and what it all means for your local SEO strategy. Find out which factors rose and which ones fell in the 2026 LSRF!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week, I’m talking about the 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors again, and this week, I’m talking about the signals that have changed since the last LSRF.
Last week, I shared the news about the release of the 2026 LSRF. Every year when the new LSRF is released, I like to go over the new additions and more importantly, chat about the signals that have changed since the previous version.
This year, with the addition of the AI search factors and some of the other big signal swings, it was too much to talk about in one episode, so I’m here with a followup LSRF episode to talk about the changes.
You’ll definitely need to head over to whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors to check out all the info, there’s way too much to cover in this single episode. This is more of a guide to the important differences and new things to check out.
Looking at the map pack signals (‘cause let’s be honest, that what everyone cares the most about anyway), review signals gained weight once again. Basically every year for the last five iterations, reviews have become more important.
GBP signals increased in value a bit, while on-page and link signals dropped off. Citations dropped in value again, as did personalization. Social signals actually increased a bit this time around.
This time around, Darren added a whopping 47 new factors that hadn’t been in the study previously. Definitely check the list out - two of those new signals made it into the top ten list for most important ranking signals for the map pack. Business being open at time of search came in at number 5 and visible address in the GBP came in at number 7. Another high-ranking new factor is having predefined services selected on the GBP, which came in at number 22.
There were also 8 new negative factors added to the study, it’s worth checking those out as well.
Darren also outlines several factors that jumped up or down significantly since the last study. Having keywords in your GBP services jumped up 75 spots since last time. Having proper hours on your GBP jumped up 64 spots. In-store visits tracked by Android or Google Maps app location detection jumped up 32 spots. And the quantity of engagement signals on GBP jumped up 14 spots.
Several factors were listed that dropped significantly. Internal links from the GBP landing page to other site pages dropped 65 spots. Linking off the site to authority topically relevant sites dropped 64 spots. Volume of quality content on service pages dropped 40 spots.
One of the biggest changes is that citations are back, baby! For the last 4 or 5 years, citations have become less and less influential. They’re basically at the point where they simply don’t matter for anything other than brand new businesses. But, with the rise of AI search, they’re back into the spotlight. The AI models all use grounded searches to get more information about local businesses, and all those directory sites we didn’t care about for SEO are a gold mine for the AI models.
But honestly, my favorite part of the study is all the comments from the experts who participated in the study. Down at the bottom, there’s an accordion section listing all the questions asked to the experts. When you click to expand the accordion for a question, you can read the answers that all of the experts contributed, and there’s some incredibly insightful and helpful stuff in there. Make sure you head over to whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors to check out all the awesomeness.
That’s all the time we have left for this week’s episode, so you know what that means. Put your hand on the screen right here: We totally just high-fived ‘cause you learned something awesome. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.
