A local results page is several competitions stacked on one screen: a map pack, a People Also Ask box, and an organic list that local businesses share with directories and review sites. We wanted a plain count of who actually occupies that space for ordinary local searches, so on October 1, 2026 we ran 30 searches from the same Chicago location and recorded what came back.
How we collected the data
- Location: every search carried the Google
uuleparameter forChicago,Illinois,United States, withgl=us,hl=enand personalization off. These are the same parameters our local SERP checker builds. - Queries: 20 business-type searches (plumber, dentist, personal injury lawyer, pizza, hair salon, veterinarian and so on), 4 “near me” versions, and 6 informational questions such as “how much does a plumber cost”.
- Collection: results pages were fetched through a SERP API on a single day. 16 of the 30 first responses came back with an organic block unrelated to the query, and we re-fetched each one until it matched before counting anything.
The map pack follows intent, not topic
All 24 business-type searches, including the four “near me” versions, showed a three-business map pack. None of the six informational questions did. That held even when the question was about a local service: “how much does a plumber cost” returned no map pack, and its organic results were cost guides, several of them written specifically about Chicago prices.
So a question about plumbers is not the same search as a plumber search. If you want to reach people at the research stage, that happens in the organic results and the People Also Ask box, not the pack. Our guide to transactional vs informational local queries goes further into the difference.
People Also Ask was almost everywhere
28 of the 30 searches showed a People Also Ask box. The two that didn’t were “coffee shop” and “car wash”, two of the simplest find-a-place searches in the set. For service businesses those questions are a free list of what customers want to know before they call.
A third of page one belonged to directories
Across the 24 business searches the API returned 200 page-one organic results. 66 of them, about a third, were directories, review sites, marketplaces or social and forum pages rather than a business’s own website.
- Yelp appeared on 19 of the 24 searches.
- Thumbtack, Reddit and Facebook each took six result slots, and Tripadvisor three.
- On four searches directories held the majority of page one: “divorce lawyer” (6 of 7 results), “pizza” (5 of 8), “hair salon” (5 of 9) and “car wash” (4 of 7).
For those searches a business’s best organic presence may be its listing on someone else’s site. That is a reason to keep directory profiles complete and accurate, and to look at the whole page rather than only your own position.
Map pack winners rarely ranked organically
51 of the businesses in the 24 map packs listed a website. Only 11 of those websites also appeared in the page-one organic results for the same search, and on 14 of the 24 searches none did. Winning the pack and ranking organically turned out to be close to separate achievements, which is the pattern we describe in why you can rank organically but not in the local pack.
The pack listings were also well established. The median business had 343 Google reviews, and only 10 of the 66 listings with a review count had fewer than 100.
“Near me” changed different things for different searches
We compared four searches with and without “near me”:
- Plumber: the same three businesses in the pack, but a completely different organic top ten.
- Dentist: no business in common between the two packs.
- Locksmith and pizza: two of three pack businesses shared, with more of the organic list carried over.
There was no single rule. That is the practical lesson: if customers use both versions of a search, check both, and check the pack and the organic list separately. In our Houston ZIP code study, “near me” changed even less from a fixed ZIP code.
What to take from this
- Match the content to the part of the page that exists for the query. Service searches are decided in the pack; questions are decided in organic results and People Also Ask.
- Measure the pack and organic rankings separately. In this sample most pack winners had no page-one organic listing.
- Don’t ignore directories. On some searches they are most of page one.
- Look at the full page. A position number hides who else is on the screen. The checker opens the real page for any location so you can see it.
Limitations
This is a single location on a single day. The API returned between four and nine organic results per search and did not return AI Overview or ad data for these searches, so we don’t report on either; on a live page both may sit above everything counted here. “Directories” is our own grouping of aggregators, review sites, marketplaces, social networks and forums. Results in other cities, and on other days, will differ.