An Oasis

Google Search by Location

Hmmm, this is cool. Google Search by Location takes normal search terms and a geographical reference point to come up with results specific to not just what you need by where you need it too. Only works in the U.S. just now but the mapping is done by MapQuest so should be pretty easy to port it to other MapQuest countries (MapQuests: UK, France & Germany).

Sample searches which I tried seemed to work pretty well e.g. bookstore near church street, san francisco. This is only in Google Labs just now so they don't claim it to be flawless.

Googleguy on WebmasterWorld says,

"Some things that you'll want to remember: right now it's U.S. only (gotta start somewhere, right?). The other thing that's not obvious at first is that it's not just matching to categories--it's actually searching web pages with addresses for the words you type. So it's fine to do searches for things like dancing lessons, but you can also query for really specific words, like darkroom rental rc fiber nearby 94043, or things that don't really fit into typical yellow pages categories, like wildlife sanctuary nearby portland, oregon. Things will get faster and better with time, but tell us what you think of the general idea of a web geosearch like this."

Also see the Google Search by Location FAQ and the group

Posted by Paul at September 24, 2003 03:53 AM |