---
title: "What impacts your Google search result ranking?"
date: 2011-07-28
author: "Courtney Robertson"
featured_image: "https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ship2.png"
categories:
  - name: "SEO"
    url: "/category/seo.md"
  - name: "Social Media"
    url: "/category/social.md"
tags:
  - name: "business"
    url: "/tag/business.md"
  - name: "Facebook"
    url: "/tag/facebook.md"
  - name: "Foursquare"
    url: "/tag/foursquare.md"
  - name: "Google"
    url: "/tag/google.md"
  - name: "Search"
    url: "/tag/search.md"
  - name: "Search engine optimization"
    url: "/tag/search-engine-optimization.md"
  - name: "Search Engines"
    url: "/tag/search-engines.md"
  - name: "Web search engine"
    url: "/tag/web-search-engine.md"
---

# What impacts your Google search result ranking?

There are a lot of factors that impact your rank in Google search results, and it’s an ever-changing always evolving challenge for business owners. Did you know that if you search for something based upon which location you are in or if you are logged in to your Google account vs. anonymous searching could heavily impact the results you get?

## Location matters

If you are a local business owner, getting ranked in various towns and cities in your region will impact your likelihood of being discovered. Local SEO is increasingly more important as people are abandoning their yellow pages in favor of searching Google or using an app from their smartphone. Encourage your customers to rate and review you on Google Places, and other mobile sites like Foursquare and Facebook. See the varying results I got from searching for “jewelry” from 2 different towns located just 10 miles apart geographically: **Shippensburg, PA**

[![Shippensburg search results](https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ship-1024x605.png "Shippensburg search results")](https://courtneyr.dev/?attachment_id=1848)**Chambersburg, PA**

[![Chambersburg search results](https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/cburg-1024x572.png "Chambersburg search results")](https://courtneyr.dev/?attachment_id=1849)## Who you are connected with matters

**Logged in as me:**Beyond where you search, who you are, what you’ve previously searched for, and who you are connected to online matters. Google is using +1, your[ Google Profile](https://courtneyr.dev/2011/03/03/how-do-i-use-google-profiles/ "How do I use Google Profiles?"), and other online connections to determine what content you should discover. If you don’t want these filters, always search in Chrome’s Incognito window.

[![Me 1024x523](https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/me-1024x523.png "me")](https://courtneyr.dev/?attachment_id=1850)**And now logged out:**

[![Out 1024x524](https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/out-1024x524.png "out")](https://courtneyr.dev/?attachment_id=1851)As [Search Engine Land explains](http://searchengineland.com/how-being-friends-on-google-leads-to-better-rankings-87376 "Being Friends on Google impacts search results"), who you are friends with on Google now matters.

## Displaying author profiles:

If you want to display your author picture and a link to your Google Profile beside your articles like this:

[![Author](https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/author.png "author")](https://courtneyr.dev/?attachment_id=1852)see [Joost De Valk’s Wordpress & Google Profile settings guide](http://yoast.com/wordpress-rel-author-rel-me/ "Wordpress rel author")

## Ready to learn more?

Come learn come learn what you can do online to improve your presence.