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08 February 2010
Posted in
S.E.O
Now when you search for somewhere specific that is within your local area, Google gives you a list of “nearby places you might like”. This could be both good and bad news for many small or local businesses, as now when your customers search for you, your competitors’ contact details will follow.
Sometimes we will talk about a place where we like to eat. What usually follows is many suggestions, from your various friends, of places that you should try that are also in your local area. This is really just the same thing, just on Google instead of coming from a person’s mouth. For example, if you are going to a local fast food restaurant, somebody might tell you there is a great place for wine round the corner or a place where you can pick up some nice meat or smoked fish on the way back home from the fast food restaurant.
It's not really for taking business from one place to the other, it's more for getting people to take a look at somewhere close to where they are going anyway, because it's on the way or because it's very close to where they are going. It could just save people time and money, while just spreading out the custom in the local areas to many more businesses than usual. You may also notice that the businesses in the ‘nearby places you may like’ section is full of companies that have little or nothing to do with what you have searched for. This is because Google is suggesting places you may want to stop by as you go to this place, not suggesting places you could go instead.
These suggestions are gathered using a broad set of signals, which Google are currently trying to refine. Google have set their interests on local business-related tools and search integration, and expect them to come up with a lot for this purpose. When Google do something, the result is never a half measure, of that we can be sure. When you look at this nearby places addition as a whole, you don’t know who will benefit. It may give established customers ideas to go to a different company, or it may give users of another company, the ideas to use yours instead.
