Google Maps Local-Search Improvements
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The search leader upgrades Google Local, still in beta, by showing more interactive maps with results and beefing up relevancy.
Google Inc. on Tuesday updated its local search service with a focus on maps and providing more relevant results. Google Local combines results from the Web with business-directory information to display local business listings and information. Google lets users conduct local searches either from its main Web query, displaying local results atop broader Web results, or from its Google Local site. In the update, Google has integrated maps onto local result pages, pinpointing businesses from the listings on the maps and allowing users to zoom and pan directions without reloading the Web page, the Mountain View, Calif., company announced..
Will local search meet expectations? Click here to read more.
Googles other local enhancements include expanding the number of indexed Web pages that it searches to retrieves local results and "improved relevancy technology" to better target results to queries, the company announced.
A Google spokesman declined to specify details of the changes, but he said part of the improved relevancy comes from more results being returned that match the home page of a local business.
Google Local remains in beta, and the company has declined to say when it plans a full release.
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As an online reporter for eWEEK.com, Matt Hicks covers the fast-changing developments in Internet technologies. His coverage includes the growing field of Web conferencing software and services. With eight years as a business and technology journalist, Matt has gained insight into the market strategies of IT vendors as well as the needs of enterprise IT managers. He joined Ziff Davis in 1999 as a staff writer for the former Strategies section of eWEEK, where he wrote in-depth features about corporate strategies for e-business and enterprise software. In 2002, he moved to the News department at the magazine as a senior writer specializing in coverage of database software and enterprise networking. Later that year Matt started a yearlong fellowship in Washington, DC, after being awarded an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship for Journalist. As a fellow, he spent nine months working on policy issues, including technology policy, in for a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He rejoined Ziff Davis in August 2003 as a reporter dedicated to online coverage for eWEEK.com. Along with Web conferencing, he follows search engines, Web browsers, speech technology and the Internet domain-naming system.
