|
Monday, September 22, 2003
Google Takes the Initiative in Local Search
Google is offering a new take on search: the ability to find local businesses by typing your search term along with a zip code. It's in the rudimentary phases, and certainly doesn't seem as good as a strong metadata protocol might be for the same thing, but check out what they say in their press release:
For this experiment, we've done something new by analyzing the entire content of a page
to extract hints or what we call "signals," about the geographic nature of a page.
Well, all I can say is "keep at it, Google." I tried the requisite example query from the master list of colorful example queries provided to me by a prominant search guru who shall remain nameless. "women's shoe store" and "90210" turned up a bunch of listings for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce. Hmm, maybe it's time for the shoe stores to start optimizing for that zip code thing? Brick and mortar can be dumb sometimes...
You can perform your own experiment at labs.google.com.
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
View Posts by Category |
|
D'oh!
|
