Local search (Internet)

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This is the article about web searching. For the algorithmic technique, see local search (optimization)

Local search is a type of internet search wherein the keyword string submitted to the search engine includes a locality parameter (such as: city name, ZIP code, state name, etc) along with other keyword terms, or the user's physical location (known as Geolocation) is identified in some way, and the results returned supposedly are limited to that locality. The traditional internet search paradigm involves returning links to pages which contained all the user's keywords, but the "local search" variant may return businesses or points of interest (POI) which have physical addresses located within or near to the locality, and the pages might not contain references to that locality.

There are several different types of local search site. Some local search sites, such as Verizon Superpages.com, are provided by print Yellow Page publishers. These sites are the online offshoot of print Yellow Pages, which is where much of the enhanced content featured on such sites comes from. Other local search sites are newer sections on popular web search engine sites, for example Google Maps (formerly Google Local), Windows Live Local and Yahoo! Local. All these sites compete for local search traffic and advertising revenues. Traditional media companies, including newspaper publishers and TV and radio broadcasters, are starting to add local search to their local websites in an effort to attract their share of local search traffic and advertising revenues in the markets they serve. These local media companies either develop their own solution or partner with firms which provides a hosted, private-label local search solution for local media companies.

Another method is for users to submit pages to a search engine with their geographic location or pages with their geographic location embedded within themselves.

[edit] External links

• Microformats hCard protocol for adding local info to web pages