Local search (Internet)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On the World Wide Web, local search is a query that uses a special type of search engine. The query includes not only information about "what" the site visitor is searching for (such as keywords, a business category, or the name of a consumer product) but also "where" information, such as a street address, city name, postal code, or geographic coordinates like latitude and longitude. These sites are primarily supported by advertising, but some accept payments from retail merchants and others wishing to be listed.
Various geolocation techniques may be used to match visitors' queries with information of interest. The type of information and points of interest returned varies with the type of local search engine. Some sites, such as superpages.com (owned by Idearc Media) and TrueLocal, list local businesses, usually in a categorization scheme similar to (or actually derived from) a traditional Yellow Pages phone book.
Google Maps (formerly Google Local) looks for physical addresses mentioned in regular web pages. It provides these results to visitors, along with business listings and maps. Product-specific search engines, such as Froogle and Yokel.com use techniques such as targeted web crawling and direct feeds to collect information about products for sale in a specific geographic area. Other local search engines adjunct to major web search portals include general Windows Live Local, Yahoo! Local, and ask.com's AskCity. Other popular local-only search engines include Local.com.
Traditional media companies, including newspaper publishers and television 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 technology and data, or purchase "private label" services from a local search company.
Electronic publishers (such as businesses or individuals) with information they would like to appear on local search engines have several options. Business listing information can be distributed via the traditional Yellow Pages, electronic Yellow Pages aggregators, direct contact with the local search engines (such as through Google Base), or search engine optimization services. Some search engines will pick up on web pages that contain regular street addresses displayed in machine-readable text (rather than a picture of text, which is more difficult to interpret). Web pages can also use GeoTagging techniques, such as microformats.
[edit] See also
- Citysearch
- HotFrog
- Windows Live Maps
- Google Maps
- Yahoo! Maps
- Verizon SuperPages
- hCard (protocol for adding local info to web pages)
Local Data Publishers:
Local Search Players Overview:
- Guide To Local Listings (who provides data to whom)
