Google Enhances Google Local Search Engine
Google has announced enhancements to its newish Google Local service at http://local.google.com . When you go to the page you’ll see a space for what you’re looking for and another space for where you’ll looking. The results pages is where you’ll see the real difference.
I decided I wanted to find tires in Indianapolis. A search for tires and Indianapolis got lots of results (GL defaults to searching within 45 miles of your stated location.) You’ll also see a map with your results clustered on it. Google says you can zoom and pan without reloading the page, but that only worked for me part of the time (an Opera thing?) Sometimes the map itself would reload, sometimes the page would reload.
Google also noted that the search now provides links from where the search result was fine. While there were minimal references searching for tires in Indianapolis, searching for theaters in Moscow (Idaho) found listings that had multiple (in one case 189!) external references. Google offers the sites that provide external references on another page.
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Columist Tara Calishain is writer and editor at ResearchBuzz and author of the new book Web Search Garage
