The Measurement
Two instruments, one date. On July 27, 2026 we pulled organic and map-pack results for 155 real plumbing search queries across Edmonton, top-20 deep, desktop and mobile separately. Those 155 queries carry 200,560 searches per month, more than the law-firm and dentist markets combined. In parallel, the geo-grid spanned 304 uniform cells across the metro, a 19-by-16 lattice of real mobile local-finder searches for “plumber”, which rostered the top 25 companies and captured their last 18 months of reviews, 2,545 in all. Where law firms concentrated into six downtown kilometres, plumbers spread across the entire city, and the grid followed them.
Where the Demand Sits
This market has one shape: proximity. “Plumber near me” and its two phrase variants carry 49,500 searches per month each: three queries, 148,500 searches, three quarters of everything. The top 10 queries hold 87.4 percent of the market’s volume, the head-term concentration we saw in dentistry and the exact opposite of the law-firm long tail. And unlike law and dental, the urgent demand is real: the measured emergency cluster carries 5,500 searches per month. People search plumbers standing in water.
The Query Universe, Snapshot
| # | Keyword | Searches / month |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | plumber near me | 49,500 |
| 2 | plumbers near me | 49,500 |
| 3 | plumbing near me | 49,500 |
| 4 | best plumber Edmonton | 4,400 |
| 5 | best plumbers Edmonton | 4,400 |
| 6 | plumber Edmonton | 3,600 |
| 7 | Edmonton plumber | 3,600 |
| 8 | plumbers Edmonton | 3,600 |
| 9 | Edmonton plumbers | 3,600 |
| 10 | plumbing Edmonton | 3,600 |
| 11 | Edmonton plumbing | 3,600 |
| 12 | emergency plumber near me | 3,600 |
| 13 | plumbing services near me | 2,400 |
| 14 | drain cleaning near me | 1,900 |
| 15 | water heater repair near me | 1,900 |
Source: keyword-metrics sheet of the July 27, 2026 pull, volume scoped to Canada.
Demand by Service Category
Monthly search volume by category, all 155 keywords
Thirteen categories summing to 200,560/mo. The near-me bar dwarfs everything, which is why the map pack, not the website, is this market’s main battlefield.
Who Wins It, and Why
The local pack rendered on 93 percent of the tracked queries, and only 16.8 percent of map-pack placements also rank organic top 10 on the same page. But the organic column holds this market’s strangest finding: Reddit holds 72 organic number-one positions here, more than any plumbing company. When Edmontonians ask Google who to trust, Google’s most common answer is a thread of strangers. The only local company competing with it is also the map leader: The Gentlemen Pros holds both the map-pack’s top standing and 46 organic number-ones, the first both-layer winner we have measured in any market.
The map layer: won on review mass
- The Gentlemen Pros: map rank #1 on 3,745 reviews at 4.9
- Always Plumbing (3,945 reviews) and Capital (1,687) hold the next standings
- Eight perfect-5.0 small firms sit below with review counts too thin to hold cells
- With 76% of demand proximity-driven, this column is the market
The organic layer: won by non-plumbers
- Reddit threads: 72 number-ones: the trust vacuum made visible
- Reliance, a national chain: 43; EPCOR, the utility: 22
- The Gentlemen Pros is the only local firm seriously present at 46
- Directories take 11.3% of top-10 rows; every other local firm is a rounding error
| Domain | #1 positions | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| reddit.com · discussion threads | 72 | not a plumber |
| thegentlemenplumbersedmonton.com · The Gentlemen Pros | 46 | local, both layers |
| reliancehomecomfort.com · Reliance | 43 | national chain |
| epcor.com · EPCOR | 22 | utility |
| stores.homedepot.ca · Home Depot | 9 | retail |
| drainrooteredmonton.ca · Drain Rooter | 9 | local specialist |
| kingstreeplumbing.ca · Kingstree Plumbing | 8 | local firm |
| weiss-johnson.com · Weiss-Johnson | 8 | local HVAC |
Desktop and mobile agreed on the number-one result for 121 of 155 keywords.
The Map-Pack Grid, Cell by Cell
The exhibit below is the real instrument view from the measurement: 304 fixed cells, each one a mobile local-finder search run from that exact point, scored by Share of Local Voice. Plumbing is fought across the whole metro, and the grid shows exactly which company owns which neighbourhoods.
What Customers Punish: 2,545 Reviews Read
The 25-company roster averages 4.86 stars, the highest-rated market measured on this subdomain: eight members hold a perfect 5.0. Yet the negative file reads like one complaint written 68 ways: half of the roster’s negative reviews involve the bill. Dispatch fees of $89 to $129 charged before any estimate exists, a $1,160 faucet install, $1,000-plus drain snakes, invoices with no line items, and quotes that grow 25 percent by invoice time. The rest is reliability: booked windows with no truck, quotes promised and never sent.
Share of the 68 negative reviews mentioning each failure
Themes overlap (one review can hit several), tagged by pattern match and read-through. No roster firm publishes prices, an arrival-window guarantee, or a fee-credit policy.
The full 25-company report, with the weakness matrix and every quoted review, is published as a free sample: read the Edmonton plumbers GroundTruth sample.
The SEO Game Plan to Become #1
Everything above collapses into five sequenced steps, in the order the measurement dictates, and every step is verified by re-measuring the same grid and keyword set.
Date-stamp your starting position
Run the same 304-cell grid and the same 155-query pull for your own company before touching anything. In a market where 76 percent of demand is proximity-driven, you need to know which neighbourhoods already see you, cell by cell, on a dated exhibit.
304 grid cells · 155 queries · one dateFight the map war first: 76% of the market
The near-me cluster carries 153,410 of 200,560 monthly searches and the pack renders on 93 percent of queries. The map layer is won on review mass, proximity, and profile discipline: the leaders hold 1,600 to 3,900 reviews. Below a few hundred reviews, the system that collects and answers them is the campaign.
153,410/mo near-me · pack on 93% of queriesPrint the prices the complaint file begs for
Half the market's negative reviews are about the bill: $89-$129 dispatch fees before any estimate, $800 hours, invoices without line items. Publish the twenty common-job prices, credit the fee against work, itemize every invoice - then build the service pages that say so. Every competitor's one-star file is your ad copy.
50% of negatives involve the bill · $61.69 CPC on clogged-drain clicksTake back the trust layer Reddit owns
Reddit holds 72 organic number-ones here - Edmontonians ask strangers for plumber recommendations because no company answers the trust questions in public. Cost guides, repair-vs-replace explainers, and a visible service-standard page compete for exactly those positions, and only one local firm even tries today.
Reddit: 72 organic #1s · one local firm at 46Re-measure monthly and hold both layers
Only 16.8 percent of map placements also rank organic top 10. One firm proves both layers can be held at once - and its complaint file shows the price-trust flank it leaves open. The same grid, the same query set, re-run monthly, shows the takeover as it happens.
16.8% overlap · both layers held by exactly one firmWhat We Learned
Get This Measurement for Your Market
This study is the product. The same grid, the same query pull, the same review analysis, run for your business and your category, with the game plan sequenced from what the measurement finds.
Nothing in this study was estimated; every number came from a paid pull on a dated day. That standard of evidence is the whole argument for how we run Edmonton SEO, and it is what separates a measured plan from a proposal.