Local SEO ranking works differently from classic organic ranking, because the map pack introduces a factor no amount of content can change: how far you are from the person searching. Google states publicly that local results are determined mainly by relevance, distance and prominence. What it does not state — and has never stated — is how those three are weighted, or how the balance shifts between a dense city centre and a rural service area. This calculator makes that weighting explicit and editable, so you can model your own market rather than accept somebody's guess.
Arb Digital built this as a diagnostic for the question local businesses ask constantly: "why does the competitor two miles away outrank me?" Usually the honest answer involves distance, which you cannot fix, and prominence, which you can. Separating the two stops a business spending a year optimising something that was never the constraint.
Boundary: this tool scores map-pack visibility factors — how likely you are to surface for a local query. It does not score how complete your Business Profile is. For that, use the GMB optimization score calculator, which audits the profile itself field by field. The two are complementary: profile completeness feeds the relevance and prominence inputs here.
What This Local SEO Ranking Calculator Does
You score three factors from 0 to 100 and set the weight of each. The calculator returns a weighted local visibility score, names the weakest factor, and identifies where a fix would move the score most — which is weight-aware, so a mediocre score on a heavily weighted factor beats a terrible score on a lightly weighted one.
Two helpers make the inputs less arbitrary. A distance estimator converts your physical distance from the search point and the typical competitor radius in your market into a 0–100 distance score, so you are not inventing a number. And a review comparison shows your review count as a share of the market leader's, plus how many more reviews you would need to match them — a concrete prominence input rather than a feeling.
How to Use It
- Pick one query and one search point. Local results change with every metre the searcher moves, so a score only means something for a specific query at a specific location. Run it several times for different points across your service area.
- Score relevance from category and content match. If your primary category is "Contractor" and the query is "emergency electrician", relevance is low regardless of how good the site is. Category choice is usually the single biggest relevance lever.
- Estimate the distance score using the two distance fields and the button, rather than typing a guess. It converts distance into a score that falls away as you exceed the typical competitor radius.
- Score prominence from reviews, citations, links, and coverage. The review comparison in the results grid gives you a starting anchor for that number.
- Adjust the weights for your market. Dense urban markets behave as though distance carries more weight, because there are dozens of qualifying businesses within a mile. Sparse rural markets behave as though it carries far less.
The Formula / How It's Calculated
The headline score is a weighted mean, normalised by the total weight so it stays on a 0–100 scale regardless of what your weights add up to:
Score = Σ(Factor × Weight) ÷ Σ(Weight)
With the loaded defaults — relevance 62 at 35%, distance 48 at 30%, prominence 55 at 35% — that is (62×35 + 48×30 + 55×35) ÷ 100 = (2170 + 1440 + 1925) ÷ 100 = 55.4.
The distance estimator uses a simple decay: Distance score = 100 × (1 − your distance ÷ (2 × competitor radius)), floored at 0 and capped at 100. At 4.2 miles against an 8-mile radius, that is 100 × (1 − 4.2 ÷ 16) ≈ 73.8. The 2× multiplier is Arb Digital's modelled shape, chosen so that sitting exactly at the competitor radius scores 50 rather than 0. It is not a Google formula, and if the pattern you observe in your market decays faster, halve the multiplier.
Review share is simply your review count divided by the leader's, and reviews-to-match is the difference. Both are descriptive, not predictive — matching a competitor's review count does not entitle you to their position.
Distance Is the Factor You Cannot Optimise
This is the hardest conversation in local SEO, and it is better had early. If a searcher stands next to a competitor's front door, that competitor has an advantage no amount of content, reviews, or links reliably overcomes for that particular search. Google's documentation on how local results are ranked is explicit that distance from the location term — or from the searcher, when no location is specified — is part of the calculation.
What follows from that is a strategic point, not a defeatist one. A single-location business does not have "a ranking" in the map pack; it has a visibility surface that shrinks with distance. Measuring at one point flatters or damns you arbitrarily. Measure at a grid of points across the area you can profitably serve, score each one, and you get an honest picture: strong within two miles, contested to five, invisible beyond eight. That map is a business planning document, not just an SEO report.
It also reframes expansion. If demand sits eight miles away and distance decay is steep in your market, the answer may be a genuine second location or a staffed service point rather than more optimisation. Creating fake locations to game proximity is a well-known violation of Google's guidelines for representing your business on Google and risks removal of the listing entirely.
Relevance: Categories Beat Copy
Most local relevance work goes into website content, and most of the available gain sits in the Business Profile's category selection. A primary category is the strongest statement you can make about what the business is, and choosing a broad one to "cover more queries" reliably weakens performance on the queries that matter. A dental practice with "Dentist" as primary and "Cosmetic Dentist" as secondary behaves very differently from one with those reversed, and the difference shows up on high-value queries first.
Beyond categories, relevance comes from the services listed on the profile, from the on-page content of the location page the profile points at, and from consistent descriptions of the same service across both. A common and expensive mismatch is a profile offering eight services while the website mentions three, which leaves the strongest queries with no supporting page to send the click to. The content gap calculator is a practical way to find those missing service pages.
Prominence Is Not Just Reviews
Review count and rating are the visible part of prominence, and they are genuinely important — but Google describes prominence in terms of how well known a business is overall, which includes information from across the web: links, articles, directories, and offline reputation that has produced online traces. A well-reviewed business with no press coverage and thin citations is prominent in one dimension only.
The practical hierarchy for most local businesses runs: get review volume and recency to a competitive level, fix citation consistency so name, address and phone match everywhere, then earn genuinely local links — chamber of commerce, local news, sponsored community events, supplier directories. That last category is where most local businesses have the largest untapped gap, and it is measurable with the link velocity calculator once a programme starts.
One caution on reviews: soliciting reviews is fine, incentivising or gating them is not, and review manipulation is grounds for removal of content or the profile. The reviews-to-match figure in this calculator is a gap measurement, not a target to hit by any available means.
Why Your Score Changes When You Move Your Phone
Local rank tracking is genuinely harder than classic rank tracking, and most disagreements about "where we rank" come down to measurement rather than performance. Results differ by the searcher's precise coordinates, by device, by whether a location term was in the query, and by whether the searcher has a history with the business. Two people standing on opposite sides of the same street can see different packs.
Three habits make local measurement usable. Always record the coordinates alongside the score, so the number is reproducible. Use a grid rather than a single point, because one point cannot represent a service area. And separate queries with an explicit location ("electrician in Leeds") from implicit ones ("electrician near me") — they behave differently enough that averaging them together produces a figure that describes neither. Sorting your query list with the keyword intent classifier first makes that separation quick.
Arb Digital's SEO team measures local visibility on a grid rather than a single point, then works on the factors you can move — categories, service pages, reviews, and local authority.
SEO Services Talk to Arb DigitalCommon Mistakes to Avoid
- Measuring from one location and treating the result as "our ranking" when local visibility varies continuously across the map.
- Choosing a broad primary category to cover more queries, which weakens relevance on the specific ones that convert.
- Trying to beat distance with content — no amount of on-page work reliably overcomes proximity for a searcher standing next to a competitor.
- Treating review count as the whole of prominence and ignoring citations, local links, and press entirely.
- Creating extra listings for areas you do not have a real staffed presence in, which violates Business Profile guidelines and risks losing the listing.
Related Free Tools From Arb Digital
Audit the profile itself with the GMB optimization score calculator, score the whole site with the SEO audit score calculator, and check whether your location pages are competing with each other using the keyword cannibalization checker. To model the commercial upside before investing, use the SEO ROI calculator. More in the free online tools hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Google states publicly that local results are based primarily on relevance, distance and prominence. It does not publish weights for those three, does not rank them in order of importance, and notes that the balance can vary by query. The weights in this calculator are Arb Digital's editable model, not Google figures.
It is much harder, because distance is part of the calculation and cannot be optimised away. Businesses that do succeed usually have a genuine staffed presence there, or they win through classic organic location pages rather than the map pack. Creating a listing at an address you do not really operate from breaches Business Profile guidelines.
There is no threshold, and any specific number quoted as one is invented. Reviews are one input into prominence alongside links, citations and coverage. The useful measurement is your review volume and recency relative to the businesses currently ranking for your target query, which is what the review comparison here shows.
Because the searcher's precise location is an input, and a phone reports a much more precise position than a desktop resolving location from an IP address. Neither result is wrong. This is why local measurement should record coordinates and use a grid of points rather than a single check.
Yes. The site the profile links to contributes to relevance, and its content is one of the signals Google can use to understand what the business does. A profile listing services that the website never mentions leaves those queries without supporting content to reinforce them.
Many practitioners observe that dense markets behave as though proximity matters more, simply because dozens of qualifying businesses sit within a mile. That is an observation, not a published fact, which is why the weights here are inputs. Set them from what you see in your own market and keep them stable between measurements.
This tool scores the factors that influence whether you appear for a local query, including distance, which no profile edit can change. A Business Profile audit scores how complete and accurate the listing itself is. Use both — profile completeness improves the relevance and prominence inputs used here.
This calculator is a planning model built by Arb Digital. It does not predict map-pack positions, and no weight or threshold on this page is published by Google.
