Google "Search by Location"

mikeman · Pilot Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 623 529 ants

Google is testing a new search tool.

http://labs.google.com/help/FAQ_location.html

At the moment it is limited to locations in the USA. Do you think it will have an impact on travel marketing if it expands worldwide?

paul · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 6:53 pm Post subject:

I'm not so sure. How does this (majorly) differ from entering the search term 'texas hotel' or just the term 'hotel' in a Texas specific Google search? I tried this specific search as a test from http://labs.google.com/location and gave up waiting for the results... Confused

Paul
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mikeman · Pilot Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 623 529 ants

The difference is that it sorts out some of the clutter and gives only results for suppliers with a physical address at the location. Find a pizza near your street address, find services at a place across the world.

For those with businesses at travel destinations, it could help a lot. Getting a leg-up on the well financed competition that serves multiple destinations and has no physical presence at any, would be a nice change.

I can't wait 'till they get Canada into their data base.

paul · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 8:03 pm Post subject:

I'm still not sure I get it. You can do this sort of thing with Google as it is if you have an appreciation for the basic syntax. Let's say I want to find a web designer on Maude Street (in Kendal in the UK as it happens, but let's not worry about that detail).... I would enter:

web designer "maude street"

...as my search term. This takes me to http://www.google.com/search?q=web+designer+%22maude+street%22 and - hey presto - what's the first result?

Paul
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mikeman · Pilot Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 623 529 ants

Try web designer kendal.
Since this relates to travel planning - a better test perhaps?

paul · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 8:54 pm Post subject:

OK... we're 12th for that (out of 2,480). And 2nd for: web design kendal (out of 22,300). I just don't really see what Google are offering here that isn't already offered by their main search engine.

Paul
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mikeman · Pilot Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 623 529 ants

Are you really happy with 12th place? Would you call that an accurate result for your query? Surely the site is more correctly placed in position #1 or #2?

I don't recall the numbers, but some huge portion of sales go to the first few positions.

In the travel industry, location is the key keyword. If I can move up some positions for that word, I'll cheer for the new toy from Google.

Whether it becomes popular or is considered useful is another question.

paul · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 9:56 pm Post subject:

Hi Mike

Of course, it's always nice to occupy position #1 but we can't realistically hope to achieve this for every search term, particularly for those terms that we haven't really attempted to optimise our site for! For local web design clients, we have focussed upon the geographically much wider search term 'cumbria web design' for which we currently occupy the #1 and #9 spots (out of 43,000 results). That issue aside, my point was that I don't really understand what it is that Google are offering that they're not already offering...

Paul
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CaribbeanChoice · Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 2:04 am Post subject:

paul · Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:47 am Post subject:

I sort of see what you're saying, although the McDonalds analogy has me slightly puzzled since it's not really comparing like for like. We (as users of the search engine just performing searches) don't actually pay Google. I can however see how Google could claim advertising on more than one account with their approach, though.

The thing that puzzles me, though, is that Google has, in the past, won out for its relevancy in its results, its speed in delivering them and the simplicity of its interface. Whilst AV, Lycos and the rest were cramming their homepages with free SMS, latest news from around the world, translation tools, and everything else under the sun, Google just stuck to one main thing - the search box.

For your novice internet user, it was clear where to go. You enter your search term in the box and you're away. This wasn't always clear or obvious on other competing sites. So, in my mind at least, Google has also won many fans for its uncluttered approach.

Adding additional sites like Froogle and this latest 'search by location' offering doesn't seem to follow that same trend. Instead, doesn't it just 'muddy the water' and confusethose that are less internet au fait?

Paul
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luke pitt · Baggage Handler Joined: 13 Oct 2003 Posts: 7 1 ants

mikeman · Pilot Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 623 529 ants

You're right, we hold position #1 for that search term on Google.

That is funny - Very nice find Luke!

Welcome to the forum.

paul · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 10:32 pm Post subject:

LOL... yet another example of how much Google likes the Aardvark forums! Wink

Paul
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