Updated in 2025: How proximity affects Google organic results

Overview:

In 2020, we have a deep understanding of it Close to impact organic rankings Suitable for law firms. Fast forward to 2025 and we have revisited the concept of proximity, but this time we look at multiple keywords. We want to investigate how proximity continues to affect rankings in organic performance, especially for law firms in highly competitive metropolitan areas. This study is a follow-up to our previous study, examining how organic results differ from local packaging rankings and whether the distance from the searcher in the organic results still has the same weight as a few years ago.

What we analyze:

• We analyzed 549 searches using 9 keyword changes of 61 different pins

• The three keywords we chose to analyze are: car accident lawyers, personal injury lawyers, and slip and fall lawyers

• To add some diversity and test how competition affects the results, we used three types of search queries:
  • Implicit query: There is no keyword for the specified location (e.g., “Car Accident Lawyer”).
  • I’m inquiring: Keywords that imply proximity but are not clearly pointed out (e.g., “A car accident lawyer near me”).
  • Explicit query: Keywords with location modifiers, such as city name (e.g., “Car Accident Lawyer (City)”).

Key points:

Implicit query (no location modifier):

• The highest results for all implicit terms indicate the minimum fluctuation on 61 pins. “Personal Injury Lawyer” is the only keyword that fluctuates in the first place, with the highest website showing nearly 80% of the time.

• The top 10 results for car accident lawyers and personal injury lawyers (Page 1) fluctuated the highest, with 13 locations spinning on page 1 and only 5 locations consistently showing 100% of the time.
• For slip and fall lawyers, the top three fluctuated zero, and the top 10 rankings always show 8 locations in the results. The consistent results here may be due to lower competition in this niche compared to the personal injury or car accident keyword.

Explicit query (with city modifier):

• When we add city modifiers, the ranking becomes more stable. We see that for these queries, the first 5 positions remain constant, while all 3 keywords have little fluctuations
• For each city-specific query, different businesses lock the number one position, which reinforces geography-specific content and city-specific optimizations are still critical for rankings for organic searches (i.e., only one strong website is not enough to maintain #1 ranking).
• Even in the top 10, the results remained basically the same, with only the top five with a slightly spin.

Close me query (implicit proximity):

• This is where things start to get interesting. Although we expect more fluctuations than explicit queries, we don’t think there is much difference between “I’m close to me” and implicit queries, as both types of positions imply
• Although both the volatility of “I’m Close to Me” and the implicit query are roughly the same, the site rankings for each keyword variant are very different – i.e., the site rankings for the implicit query are not necessarily the same site rankings for “I’m Close to Me”.

• The top 10 positions also saw more competition, with some doubts up to 13 or 16 locations (e.g., “Slip and Fall Lawyer Near Me” has 16 locations in the top 10).
• The websites I have questions are usually optimized as goals

How this compares to our 2022 study:

In 2022, we conducted a study focusing on how the proximity affects the local organic ranking of law firms. The study examined 72 postal regulations in the City of Toronto and studied 144 searches (72 “Personal Injury Lawyers” and 72 “Personal Injury Lawyers”). One of the key points is that proximity has a greater impact on the ranking of local organic results than local packaging results.

When we compared the results of the 2022 study with the 2025 study, we noticed some major differences:

• The nearest end is important now: In the 2025 study, proximity remains a factor, but it does not seem that the impact on organic rankings will be affected as in the 2022 study. In fact, for implicit and near-me queries, the results are less than expected, especially in highly competitive areas such as personal injury laws.
• Top sites stay consistent: A key point from 2022 is that some law firms have dominated the search results. In 2025, we observed a similar trend, but it is less obvious, especially for slip and fall lawyers, the top three rankings are very stable.
• My query is still beneficial: Although the proximity weight does not have the same weight as the 2022 weight, my optimization still makes a difference. Law firms that optimize these types of queries have better rankings even if the volatility remains.

Key Points of Local SEO Strategy

• The impact of proximity on rankings:
  Proximity still affects organic rankings, but its influence is not as strong as in the past. Compared with 2020, the fluctuations in recent me and implicit query are smaller.
• Close to the value of my optimization:
  Nearly my keywords are still valuable, especially in the highly competitive local market. Optimizing these queries helps the law firm gain visibility in searches with implicit proximity, making it easier to target users within a specific radius.
• Value based on urban optimization:
  Optimizing city-specific keywords (e.g., city names and communities) is critical to ranking in local search results. This geographic optimization ensures that law firms show results among users actively searching within specific areas, helping to strengthen their position in local searches.
• Stay competitive:
  To maintain a leading position in a highly competitive local market, law firms should adapt to evolving SEO trends and prioritize location-based optimization and overall site quality.

Proximity still plays a role in organic rankings, but over time, its impact has obviously diminished. For law firms in competitive fields, success now depends on a more refined approach – a content that prioritizes geographic location, close to my optimizations and maintains high-quality websites. By focusing on these strategies and adapting to the ever-changing SEO landscape, law firms can continue to improve their local SEO performance and maintain a competitive advantage in an evolving market.