There’s been a lot of Google local search hype in the last 24 hours. In a nutshell, they’re providing local listings based on your local IP address. It may stay, it might go away. Only Google will know.
Example: I’m in Minneapolis and this is a screenshot of what shows up for the term lawyer.

Lawyers in Minneapolis
This is pretty cool and I hope it stays. You get the local listings in the middle of the highly competitive natural listings.
They also have a cool change location option.
Change Locations
Within the change location tab, you can find businesses in your neighborhood. Here is an example to find pizza in the Prospect Park neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Prospect Park Neighborhood Pizza
And the results? Pretty relevant.

Prospect Park Areas for Pizza
If you’re a local business, please add your business to the Google Local Business Center. It’s easy and free.







April 3, 2009 at 12:32 pm |
Paul,
I just noticed this showing up for a general search with local business listings for my area (Eden Prairie) and went to Google blog search to see if anyone had posted on it yet. Low and behold your post showed up. I should have known that you would have posted on it and came straigt to the source.
Cheers,
James
April 3, 2009 at 4:09 pm |
Hey, how goes it James? Thanks, I hope they continue to do this. It’s really slick.
April 8, 2009 at 8:08 am |
Great post Paul! Very cool and great insight. I agree. I hope it says around as well.
Mike
April 8, 2009 at 8:04 pm |
Thanks Mike! You made a great point tonight at Azia. Once you submit to the Google Local Business Center, they auto-call you right away to give you the confirmation code. It’s wonderful.
April 18, 2009 at 11:48 am |
Does anyone know how to display the results without the local search results provided. As an SEO, it’s hard to track rankings now that it’s different for each city.
June 5, 2009 at 5:39 pm |
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