Google "Search by Location"

[Slud]

Check it:
[labs.google.com ]

[GoogleGuy]

Good find, Slud! Folks will want to read the FAQ too: [labs.google.com...]
Some things that you'll want to remember: right now it's U.S. only (gotta start somewhere, right?). The other thing that's not obvious at first is that it's not just matching to categories--it's actually searching web pages with addresses for the words you type. So it's fine to do searches for things like dancing lessons, but you can also query for really specific words, like darkroom rental rc fiber nearby 94043, or things that don't really fit into typical yellow pages categories, like wildlife sanctuary nearby portland, oregon. Things will get faster and better with time, but tell us what you think of the general idea of a web geosearch like this.

[dougb]

Very cool. I had a hunch this was coming, but I never expected the dynamic-map-drawing goodness.

[vitaplease]

Hey, maybe Google used something from their Programming Contest winner;

Daniel Egnor Project title: Geographic Search [google.com]

[webmasterworld.com...]

Amazing stuff again Google!

BMW, internet in car, Voice-command, GPS, Google location, - Where is Pubcon London? Second on your left..

Time for a new "annual" programming contest...

[dmorison]

Anyone remember when the BBC told everyone to go to Google and type in their postcode?

Working from home I got a scary number of hits through this basic form of "location search".. :)

[Josefu]

...this already exists at GeoURL - sign you site up there, it's fun to see who your 'neighbours' are - I hope google does this, the next step in 'bringing the world together' - or knocking on your neighbour's door to discuss his site instead of sending an e-mail. Lol... almost exciting. Bravo!

(added) correction: I tried the Google lab and it looks great - nothing like GeoURL - good! GeoURL is not a search. Adress and keyword is so much better... I can't help imagning being in the midst of cooking and finding that I'm missing some exotic spice - I'd go to the computer, type in 'oriental' and my postal code - of course I'd get 'carpets' and 'massages' in the resulting list but I'm sure my spice store will be there. Schwing!

[HitProf]

>right now it's U.S. only (gotta start somewhere, right?)

Is this a promise?

[vitaplease]

I guess France, Germany, UK will be next

[mapquest.com...]

[Macguru]

I guess Google felt the heat... ;)

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Chndru]

Heini in [webmasterworld.com...]

Any bets Google will be first to put this out? Exactly what happened when OV announced Content targeted ads...

~:)

[ibizwiz]

Both the Google geo-lookup and the earlier Overture equivalent fail to relate web content to the geographic location in a way that is useful for the searcher.

I understand that many here think Google can do no wrong, but the simple fact is that simple web-crawling based on keyword associations by itself cannot determine *adequately* if a website ought to be associated with a geographic location, and if so, how - that is, in what context?

Of course, this is where adequacy is defined by the ability to produce an acceptable proportion of relevant results to the user's query - not based on simplistic keyword matches but contextual releavance as well.

There is at least one better way to accomplish geo-marking of websites and other online listings.

What the Overture and the copy-cat move of Google *do* demonstrate, however, is that both are finally aware that they simply must do something smarter if they plan to go after the online Yellow Pages, and the various cityguides.

Google's attempt to move in this direction is hardly unexpected or surprising: do the folks posting here realize that the *combined* global revenues of Google and Overture this year represent perhaps 10% of the ad money spent on the Yellow Pages?

[heini]

Good points, ibizwiz. Personally I see this as nothing but a small step in what is to become a long distance race towards a total fragmentation of the www.

[Slud]

I hope Google continues to devlope this feature. Like many projects Google has started (e.g. Froogle), the potential is huge if done right.

Combine Search by Location with Google Wireless Search [google.com] and you can find just what you need, where you need it.

Many small things make a great pile.

[itisgene]

It shows only server errors..
Is it down now?

[EliteWeb]

It has been slashdotted ...

/.

[GoogleGuy]

Yah, we put stuff up on Labs when we want to give a peek behind the curtain, but for Labs it's okay for a service to get slashdotted--the FAQ points that out in a pretty funny way. It turns out that the interest in geosearch is pretty high. :) I'm a big fan of the idea of searching locally, so I'm happy that lots of people are trying it.

[werty]

Word must be spreading fast...here is what I got when I tried it:

Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in a minute or so.

I am looking foward to seeing how exactly these results are generated. Thanks for the heads up on it, Slud.

[gopi]

Google's local search is good but not anywhere near yp.yahoo.com which is kinda neat! , i believe google have a long way to go to beat other online YP services like yahoo yellow pages or superpages.com ...

[Hollywood]

Server Error
The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.
If the problem persists, please mail [e-mail] and mention this error message and the query that caused it.

[jimbeetle]

Didn't have much time to play around with it earlier today and looks like now everyone in the world is trying to give it a go. Busy, busy, busy.

From what I saw this a.m. google might consider ditching the maps as many of the searches I did brought up results plotted in really weird locations. But overall, geo-targeting is the buzzword of the moment and if G is getting into it I have to pay attention to it.

<mumbles>Arrgh, gotta go back and put city, state, zip on the couple of hundred money pages that I just finished updating at 4am<mumbles>

[Skier]

This looks like a great idea. Find a pizza close to home or get a list of services at some distant location. If it can actually sort out only local suppliers, I can see it becoming popular.

I am surprised at how little comment it is generating here.
Is there some reason to be cautious about it?

[GoogleGuy]

I think some people just haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet, Skier. :) I like being able to do free-text searches of web pages with addresses, so you can search for stained glass supplies nearby Mountain View, CA, for example. Then you're not just doing a business search in some category (crafts?), but actually finding a web page that has the words stained, glass, and supplies, and has an address that's somewhere nearby. It's pretty fun to play with, and hopefully the crowding will let up a little bit in a smidge. :)

[g1smd]

I tried "keyword" "Indiana" and got an error message:

"Cannot Parse Indiana"

[killroy]

So what's the next step? (besides the point that US-only is pretty usless unless you want a US address, *hint-nudge*

I noticed that when looking for a tel number of a hotel in london I kept getting booking sites WITHOUT tel number on them. I ended up searching for "hotel name tel" which got me there. Does that ring a bell?

SN

[Josefu]

In all evidence all google is doing for now is applying your keyword to any addresses and Zip codes etc it can find in its database. If the person owning the site concerned has put "Widget ST." as his adress instead of "Widget Street". Perhaps later there will be a few 'variable' algorithms (translating various orthographic possibilities) but for now it's still - experimental : )

[amznVibe]

This is awesome. I found 2 new pizza places near me that I didn't know about!

For larger cities this can be downnright handy to find your nearby resources.

Also a good selling point to get new web customers to show them why they should be on the web.

[Robino]

Now we need to create fake addresses for every city in the country and put them on our sites. ;)

[twilight47]

This really better be an early prototype because searches for simple things in our city brings up the crappiest results.
Knowing my own city I can recognize this, but if someone from somewhere else was searching they might not know what kind of horrible results they are getting. :(

[HughMungus]

I don't understand what I can do with this that I can't already do with maps.yahoo.com.

[GoogleGuy]

Hi HughMungus (great handle, by the way)! A yellow pages product only lets you search for businesses; this demo lets you actually search for web pages that match the keywords. So imagine that you wanted to research the local groups that did foot races. Yellow pages don't do so hot at stuff like that--you get zero results. A query like 5K OR 10K run (and then specify, say, Mountain View, CA) will show you local fun runs, local charity races, etc. It's another way to drill down into the data on the web. There's lots of other types of searches that don't work so well with a typical yellow page query.

Hope that makes sense. Best wishes,
GoogleGuy