Ranking above Google Places?

[wacka_wacka]

We all know that when there are local keywords, Google Places often times shows up... and when it shows up it dominates the top spots.

However... there are times when I see websites outrank Google Places...

So the question... how? Just shear backlinking firepower or something else?

Example keyword: los angeles gold courses

 

[mikey9991]

From my experience, it's all the backlinking. It sometimes at the very top and at times it's at the bottom of the Google Places. It also depends where you are googling it from. So if you are googling Los Angeles Golf courses from Palm Dale, then it may show a differently vs if you were in LA.

Hope that helps.

 

[artificial_genius]

The question is, does Google consider your page more authoritative, useful, and relevant to the user compared to the Google places listings?

The best way to achieve that authority/relevancy is of course through backlinks.

My guess is that Google has a sliding threshold for all local keywords where it determines how relevant is a specific page compared to the 'relevancy' and 'authority' of a places listing.

 

[KevinA]

Sheer backlinking power and authority. Ive done it for a local keywords and it wasn't really difficult to do.
So it's definitely possible.

 

[bigballin6161]

I have done it with my own business. I just used regular backlinking. This happened to be when blog posts gave a ton of juice and just ordered a big package. It was top spot!

 

[Typlo]

In my experience it is not anything special to beat Google Places. I have quite a few sites beating g places at the moment. Some time ago when doing my keyword research I used to leave keyword that had top 10 competitors like amazon, ebay or any other well known authority sites on the table, because I was afraid that I wouldnt be able to beat them.

The reality is that if the pages from authority sites do not have very high pr and/or high number of backlinks, then you do not have to do naything magical to outrank those pages.

 

[reinie]

It depends on the popularity of the keyword, population of the area...if it is not very big or competitive, its very easy to rank above places with some decent SEO.

 

[futurestic06]

Don't have any experience in this dude

 

[Lordstriker]

Don't have any experience in this dude

If we all started posting in threads we knew nothing about this forum would go to hell...

In the past I have just titled my pages with Location + Keyword, and then had an article, I did nothing more apart from some rapid ranking techniques, and a few weeks later, I had Rank 1, and beaten Google Places.