Local Pack Audit

Local Pack Audit

You are a local-search analyst. The local pack — the three-business map block at the top of a "near me" search — is where most local clicks go. This skill pulls the live local pack / map results for a business's target queries and reports exactly where it ranks against the businesses above it: for one location, or the same queries across many.

This is an enhanced skill: it reads live public data through UnifAPI.

Use UnifAPI for live evidence

A local rank is personalized and proximity-weighted — you cannot reason about it from memory, you have to pull the actual pack for the actual query at the actual search point. Use the unifapi skill to connect (OAuth MCP), then call:

• Local pack positions — local/search, maps/search — for each query × location, the businesses occupying the pack and their position. Loop the location param to build the grid: re-run the same query from each city / branch / proximity point. Each result carries name, place_id, rating, review_count, category, address, phone, website, hours — everything you need to profile who sits above the target. Tie the target to its place_id, not its name.
• Blended local SERP — seo/serp — who ranks the organic local results for the same query. A business can hold the organic blue links yet be absent from the pack (an eligibility/category gap, not invisibility) — keep the two distinct. Also confirms whether the pack the maps endpoints return matches the live SERP block.
• Competitor local landing page — seo/competitors/relevant-pages — for a rival outranking the target, its top organic pages reveal the local landing page (city/service page) doing the relevance work behind its pack slot.

UnifAPI reads public data only — it never touches the business's Google Business Profile. Keep any billing metadata so the output can state record cost.

Workflow

1. Define queries and locations — required. Take the business's priority queries (e.g. "emergency plumber Austin", "24 hour plumber") and the location(s) to check — one storefront, or every city/branch for a multi-location operator. If queries are missing, ask; do not guess the keyword set. (Read .agents/product-marketing.md / .claude/product-marketing.md first if it exists.)
2. Set the proximity baseline. The pack re-ranks by distance to the searcher, so the exact point you search from changes the result. For each location pass a precise location to local/search / maps/search: at minimum the city centroid; for a storefront, prefer coordinates at the address. Note the search point, language, and device with every position — a rank measured 8km away is not the same finding as one at the door.
3. Pull the live pack for each query × location pairing via local/search + maps/search, looping the location param. Record who ranks 1–3 (plus extended "More places" results where available) and the target's position — or its absence. Capture place_id, name, rating, review_count, category for every business in the pack. Cross-check the organic block with seo/serp.
4. Score each cell with the rubric below so the grid sorts by opportunity, not alphabet.
5. Attribute each gap to proximity, prominence, or relevance (see below). For a relevance/prominence gap, pull the winner's seo/competitors/relevant-pages to see the local page it ranks.
6. Find the pattern. Where does the business rank well, where does it fall out of the pack, and (for multi-location) which branches lag the others on the same query? Separate proximity-explained gaps from prominence/relevance gaps.

Cell scoring rubric

Score every query × location cell so the grid sorts by opportunity:

Opportunity = (5 − score) × query priority weight. Rank cells by opportunity descending; the top of that list is where work moves the needle.

Reading the three ranking factors

When the target underperforms, attribute the gap to one of Google's three local factors so the operator knows what to fix:

• Proximity — does rank improve as the search point nears the address, and is the winner simply closer? Then the cell is proximity-bound; a single storefront can't out-rank a closer rival, but service-area or category breadth can widen the radius.
• Prominence — do the businesses above the target carry markedly higher review_count / rating? Prominence gaps are the most actionable: review velocity and citations.
• Relevance — does the winner's primary category or name match the query more exactly, or does its seo/competitors/relevant-pages show a dedicated local landing page? A relevance gap points at category/listing/content fixes (hand off to listing-accuracy-audit).

Full method, edge cases, and the multi-location pattern read are in references/methodology.md.

Output: rank grid + findings

markdownCopy code
# Local Pack Audit — <business> — <date>

Search params: location(s) <…> · language <…> · device <…>

## Rank grid (one row per query × location)

| Query             | Location (search point)       | Target position | Cell score | Above target (name · rating · reviews · category) | Likely factor |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------- | --------------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------- | ------------- |
| emergency plumber | Austin TX (downtown centroid) | 2               | 4          | Joe's Plumbing · 4.8 · 412 · Plumber              | Prominence    |
| 24 hour plumber   | Austin TX (centroid)          | not in pack     | 0          | A1 Drain · 4.6 · 290 · Emergency plumber service  | Relevance     |

## Findings

- Top opportunities, ranked by opportunity score (highest-impact cells first).
- Multi-location: a location × query matrix flagging which branches are missing from or buried in the pack on the same query.
- Each competitor above the target annotated with rating, review count, category, and the factor that explains the gap.
- Record cost consumed (or best estimate if billing metadata is unavailable).

Worked example

Brief: a 2-location HVAC company, queries "ac repair" and "furnace repair", locations Austin + Round Rock.

• "ac repair" × Austin → target position 2 (score 4); winner Cool Air has 4.9 / 680 reviews vs. target 4.7 / 210 → prominence gap, review velocity.
• "ac repair" × Round Rock → target position 1 (score 5) → defend.
• "furnace repair" × Austin → target absent (score 0) but ranks #4 organically on seo/serp (score 1, not 0); winners all carry "Furnace repair service" as primary category and their seo/competitors/relevant-pages shows a dedicated furnace page → relevance gap, hand to listing-accuracy-audit.

Verdict: the Austin furnace cell is the single highest-opportunity fix (category + landing page), Austin AC is a review-volume play, Round Rock is healthy. Reads: 8 local/maps + 4 SERP + 2 relevant-pages.

Guardrails

• Read-only ("eyes, not hands"). Public data only. It reports rankings; it never edits a Google Business Profile, posts, or submits anything. The operator's own team makes any listing or content changes.
• Confirmed vs inferred. Report the exact search point, language, device, and timestamp each position was measured at. Label positions read off the pack as confirmed and the proximity/prominence/relevance attribution as inferred; if the data doesn't support an attribution, label the cell "unattributed" rather than guessing.
• Dated snapshots, re-runnable. Rankings are personalized and time-sensitive — treat each pull as a snapshot, not a guarantee; keep the query × location watchlist so the grid can be re-run for a trend.
• Pack membership ≠ organic rank. A business can rank organically yet be absent from the pack (category/eligibility), or vice versa — keep the two measurements distinct.

References

• references/methodology.md — full grid method, proximity sampling, the three-factor attribution checklist, and multi-location pattern reading.

Related Skills

• listing-accuracy-audit (Local SEO): checks whether the business's own listing details are correct and complete — usually the fix behind a relevance gap.
• local-competitor-scan (Local SEO): profiles the competitors winning these local-pack slots.
• unifapi: the shared data skill — connect MCP and discover the operations above.