I Studied the Top 3 HVAC Companies in 100 Cities. Here's What Decides Who Wins.

I searched "HVAC" on Google Maps in 100 cities, from 3 spots in each one: 300 searches, 3,000 listings. Most of the time, the company with the most reviews was NOT number one. Free Google & AI Visibility Report (see where you rank across your whole area): https://audit.happlosystems.com/ab Here's what actually decides the top 3, and what you can do this week. CHAPTERS 0:00 Who wins the top 3 on Google Maps? 0:32 Who I am 0:46 How I ran the test (100 cities) 1:18 What Google says matters 1:32 #1: Being close 2:37 Downtown got weird 3:27 Quick one: the free report from my company 3:48 #2: Reviews 4:37 #3: The basics 5:03 The twist: what customers type 6:02 Can you pay for the top 3? 6:23 What to do this week 7:03 I'm running this again in 30 days 7:10 Wrap-up HOW I TESTED (my test, Oct 23, 2026) 100 cities: one in every state, plus some big metros. In each city I searched "hvac" from 3 spots: downtown, and about 5 miles north and 5 miles south. That's 300 searches, and I kept the top 10 every time (3,000 listings). I used a data tool that pulls the real Google Maps results for one exact spot, the way a customer searching on a computer would see them. Ads weren't counted. "AC repair" was also searched from the same spots in 5 of the cities. The heat maps (Phoenix, Denver, Nashville) are separate 7x7 grids: 49 spots, 1.25 miles apart, run the same morning. This is one snapshot. Rankings move from day to day and even on a reload. WHAT I FOUND Not one city had the same top 3 at all 3 spots. In 247 of 300 searches, someone below #1 had more reviews than #1. The top 3 usually had about twice as many reviews as spots 4 to 10. About 1 in 3 searches had an ad at the very top. SOURCES Google Business Profile Help, "Tips to improve your local ranking on Google": https://support.google.com/business/a... Google Business Profile Help, "Guidelines for representing your business on Google": https://support.google.com/business/a... Business names are hidden and nothing here is a judgment of any business. Nobody can promise you a ranking on Google. Happlo is my company.