In some local knowledge panel results, Google has begun to yield more information about some local businesses, particularly big companies with many local venues.
Additional tabs of information are being shown above the local panel for (a) locations (b) about, and sometimes (c) Google Posts.
Knowledge Panels are not displayed when the new packs are present in SERPs.
The first user to identify this change in Google search results, Sergey Alakov, said it “looks like Google started combining knowledge panels and local packs in mobile search results for businesses that have a knowledge panel displayed for their brand name search and local presence in the user’s area.”
He searched for “President’s Choice Financial” which produced two tabs in the result, namely “locations” and “about”.
Alakov also tried searches for “University Of Toronto” and “Honda” and came up with varying results.
“University of Toronto” query returned UofT locations’ details in the local pack, and University of Toronto Press “about” information. Meaning, sometimes, the results are not the most obvious and helpful choices.
For the “Honda” search results, he said: “This pack is interesting for the following reasons-
1) Most car brand searches do not seem to return the new pack. In fact, Honda is the only auto brand I was able to trigger the new pack for in Toronto.
2) This is the only pack that I saw that has 3 tabs – “Locations”, “Posts”, and “About”.
The “locations” tab displays different car dealers’ locations the “about” tab contains manufacturer’s information and the “posts” tab has a car dealer’s post, which must be very frustrating for this dealer’s competitors as all dealers are privately owned, and this lucky one is getting a lot more exposure.
3) The “Posts” tab seems to have disappeared from the pack shortly after I took the screenshots.”
The new pack has been rolled out, although it’s possible that it’s still a test.
