Google uses three core factors to rank local results: proximity, relevance, and prominence. For hotels, understanding each one changes how you prioritize your time.
Proximity
This is the one factor you cannot control — it's the physical distance between the searcher and your property. A traveler searching 'hotels near downtown Chicago' will see properties closest to that area. What you can control is making sure your address data is precise and consistent everywhere it appears online.
Relevance
Google matches your profile to a search query based on how well your Business Profile and website describe what you offer. A boutique hotel that hasn't filled out its GBP categories, services, or attributes is invisible to searches like 'pet-friendly hotel near airport' — even if it accepts pets and sits two miles from the runway.
Relevance is improved by: completing every GBP field, using descriptive business categories (primary and secondary), adding amenity attributes, and aligning your website's on-page copy with the terms travelers actually search.
Prominence
Prominence is Google's measure of how well-known and trusted your property is online. It's built from three signals:
- Review volume and rating — properties with more recent, higher-rated reviews rank better
- Citation consistency — your hotel's name, address, and phone number appearing correctly across directories, OTAs, and travel sites
- Backlinks and organic authority — links from local tourism boards, event venues, and travel publications signal that your property is a recognized part of the local area
Most hotels underinvest in prominence relative to the competition. OTAs dominate organic results partly because they have massive link profiles. In the Map Pack, however, prominence is more localized — which gives individual properties a genuine path to visibility that doesn't require competing head-to-head with Expedia's domain authority.