Google has slightly updated the document on the local ranking factors, specifically the section around how reviews impact local rankings. The change was from "will probably improve" to "can improve" local rankings in the document.
Zach Mettra posted on Twitter the new version says "more reviews and positive ratings can improve your business' local ranking." The old version said "more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business's local ranking."
It is also its own sentence now.
Spotted verbiage changes today on this Google article about relevance, distance, and prominence: https://t.co/004hSendYI
— Zach Mettra (@zachmettra) September 22, 2020
Is there a difference between "will probably improve" and "can improve" local rankings? Probably just semantics, but an interesting observation. pic.twitter.com/77YUrgfJ4x
Is this an important change? Hard to say, here are what some local SEOs have to say:
Forum discussion at Twitter.
