I’ve been hearing that local search results appearing in search engine Web results pages have become pretty popular since being introduced.
How might whois data play a role in whether contact and address information is displayed in search resuls? What special challenges might large sites, or businesses with many locations face in having that contact information shown? A new Google patent application considers those issues and others.
6 Comments
How might whois data play a role in whether contact and address information is displayed in search resuls? What special challenges might large sites, or businesses with many locations face in having that contact information shown? A new Google patent application considers those issues and others.
6 Comments
Comments
A lot here... wow. Thanks. This may explain the posts I’ve been reading this week that suggest using "directions" and "contact" in anchor text to make it easier for G to find this info.
This is likely to be very useful to searchers, but it really just points out a flaw in many sites. I’ve always believed that, at least for sites of businesses with a single location, every page should contain an address and/or phone number.
Good one, Bill! Here’s something I’ve been wondering about that is somewhat connected to this and wonder if you’ve read anything about this issue: Though local search, maps, etc. is becoming better known, I believe that average users are still largely associating SERPs with going to web pages. I know I have been frustrated in Google maps and onebox results to discover that the businesses being listed have no website. As a specific example, when I look for realtors in my local area, maps and the onebox will list a number of them, but many of these results contain no website link, presumably, because the realtor doesn’t have a website. If my goal is to see rental or real estate listings, these results aren’t satisfying my need, and I would guess might be very confusing to the average user who doesn’t really get what the whole deal is with local. By publishing the results of companies who only have phone numbers, it’s really little better than what I could get picking up the phone book. Have you seen any discussion of this, Bill? I’d be interested to know. Great article! Miriam
Well worth reading. Personally I see Google going for the classifieds through local search - it’s a big market...
Thanks. A very good question, Miriam. Google’s local search does try to focus upon locations and businesses associated with them, regardless of whether or not those businesses have web pages. I think that you’re right that it has the potential to confuse people looking for Web pages, but if Google’s Local Search were limited to businesses with sites, it would offer a lot less than it does. I’m not sure that I’ve seen a discussion on this topic, but there are online mapping services online that focus solely upon showing businesses with web sites, and trying to understand the locations of those businesses. One (local.com) has a patent on that kind of geocoding, as it is sometimes referred to, and there was a lot of discussion as to whether Google was infringing upon that patent a few months back. Even this (http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/43186) excellent discussion of the local.com patent fails to distinquish that the focus of Google’s local search isn’t upon helping people find Web sites at locations, but rather finding businesses (and other organizatios) at locations, and associating web sites with them when there are relevant web sites. I do think that the service does offer more than the phone book. :)
Hi Bill, Thank you for the link. Well, I expect your right. The phone book doesn’t offer the map and other things, but I guess its usefulness would depend upon user intent. The example of wanting to see a list of rentals or real estate is likely why I felt, in this type of query, frustrated. I didn’t want a phone number or a map of the realtor’s location. I wanted a website with a house listing. But...there wasn’t a website. In that instance, using maps wasn’t helping me any more than using a phone book would have. That’s what I meant by that. Thank you so much for your reply, Bill! Miriam