tedster - 8:01 pm on Aug 15, 2012 (gmt 0)

It would be, but the dissection needs to be private. Ever since the Overstock.com fiasco last year, we need to be very strict here about open analysis of other websites.

If they were really pushing all local for the organic results

I don't think that's what their doing - but on a search that has local intent, they are really pushing hard with a different approach. I think it's ultimately the rise of mobile that is behind what Google is doing with local results, but I also think they have not found a good balance so far.