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The 2012 edition of the Local Search Ranking Factors survey by David Mihm has been officially released. Its first presentation was a few days ago at the SMX Advanced in Seattle, when we could get some sneak peeks into how the factors changed over the years and how they look like now. One thing that might have major influence on the results is the recent roll out of Google+ Local, which came to substitute Google Places. The expectations are that search will become more social and personalized, thus social ranking factors such as +1′s, adding to circles, reviews on Google+ Local and/or Zagat might have significantly increased influence on the rankings. This is not the case right now, but everything could change tomorrow, or the next week.
I will post more thoughts on it later today/early tomorrow.
