The rollout of Google Local results in the main search results for non-local queries is now official, according to the Google Blog.
Unfortunately Google seems to be very poor at IP delivery so most people I’ve spoken to are being shown results for London.
One of the reasons Google has so much market share in the UK is because Google.co.uk was so much better at delivering UK results than MSN.co.uk and Yahoo.co.uk. What Google doesn’t seem to understand is that showing London targeted results to somebody in Leeds is just the same as showing them results from Australia – it’s totally useless and a waste of space.
Unless Google can figure out a way to get better IP information from the ISP’s (or just find my address from another source) this feature just isn’t going to work.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
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This is the same in other countries – users are served local results from major cities – even though they are placed very far from these cities.
I couldn’t agree with you more Patrick, my web connection is run out of Manchester but I am based in Edinburgh.
However on generic searches (without location) I have seen local results this week from Manchester, Edinburgh and London!!
Also why half way down the page?, it’s not as if the results are blended in, they stand out like a sore thumb now.
I was discussing the same thing on my blog the other day – http://www.noporkpies.com/seo/google-local-changes-annoy-me
I did notice that they had started to deliver some results for me in Brighton but i was in Norwich yesterday and got results from Birmingham!
Considering Google wants to deliver relevant results to their users this seems like a backwards step
You can also just change your location via the “Change Location” link above the map.
For ‘golf courses’ I get Newcastle, so only about 280 miles out and a different country.
Funny you should mention Australia … because down here I’m seeing similar results – I looked for ‘helicopter charter’ and instead of being shown one in my own town I got a nice little listing for charter companies about 4 hours drive away.
Yeah from my experience this seems to be less Google’s fault and more an issue with the IP address itself.
Checking various geo-ip sites and my IP seems to jump from Leeds/Huddersfield and Preston most of the time, and I am based in Blackpool.
I do agree that they should use a more reliable source of information for your location. Perhaps they should disable the targeting features unless you put in your location within your profile.
Yeah, I see golf courses listed for Edinburgh. That’s a bit daft for me ‘cos I live a 10 min walk away from The Royal Liverpool at Hoylake.
I agree this is a backward step and don’t like this feature at all. I live in Australia in a small city 540km north of Sydney, 460km south of Brisbane, and I get local results from Sydney. If I want to see restaurants or specific shops or services from my local area, I’m quite happy to type my location into the search box. And why the first couple of very vague, generic results and definitions of the term & then serve up local results? It just doesn’t make any sense and I’m quite disappointed with this feature. Also makes optimising websites for clients a headache, not knowing what people in which region will see in their local results.
I have been trying to find a feasible geo-ip solution for almost 5 years now.
I have tested my data with almost all major companies (Quova, Maxmind, IP2Location etc etc) with their solutions ranging from £50 / month to £1000 / month and NO BODY has an accuracy of more than 55%!!!
This test data was for the last 30 days (recent) with more than 5000 ip addresses and postcodes(for UK).
Google, I think, is using Quova’s data (no one in google plex confirms this though – or the people I contacted didn’t know about it).
Now, there is a fundamental problem with the ISP network in UK and thats the reason why none of the companies have a solution – its not like they would not like to have more accurate data.
The culprit is the giant, monolithic beast which goes by the name of BT! Their internal networks / ISP setup is in such a way, that its impossible to get any accuracy of any kind to bind the IP addresses with a geo-location(I’ve previously done a short stint at BT).
I have had much greater accuracy of mapping IP addresses to locations (within 5 mile radius) with other ISPs(those that don’t use the BT backbone) like Virgin!
So, unless BT pull the finger out from their arse, there won’t be a solution for another 5 years or more!!
HTH
for many people, this results are ok.
Something goes wrong with Google. After the famous message “This Website May Harm Your Computerâ€, now they have this another problem, a misunderstanding of users IP. Hard days for G.
Google have done all that they can in providing you a way to ‘change location’ and remember it for you so this is hardly their fault – as various commentators have mentioned already it’s all about the information that the ISP provides on the netblock containing your IP address.
Of course if you live in the centre of the city that your ISP’s address puts you in, it works great. When I do searches like this I’m literally in the very centre of the map
I’m all in favour of local results – though Google look to be making review sites like Yelp redundant in certain categories (try a search for restaurants).
the google strategy……..different which other
I’m based in the far north of Scotland – but keep getting “local” results for Leeds!!
The UK is far too compact and diverse for the same local algo that might work in the states to work here.
The result is that the user experience is being badly impacted.
Shame none of the competitors are clued up enough to take advantage of this.
This is a real pain in the ****, why are they doing this when local business listings are so easy to forge, most listings are just someone blagging a postsode just to get a top ten anyway.
Add to that the fact the city google thinks your in isnt right, for goods sake i live in liverpool so why do i need to know whats going in manchester!
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Google this is terrible, please stop showing local results: The rollout of Google Local results in the main sear.. http://tinyurl.com/d2hg6j
Absolutely Blogstorm, rt@http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-this-is-terrible-please-stop-showing-local-results/
Google this is terrible, please stop showing local results: http://is.gd/raD3
Google this is terrible, please stop showing local results
http://tinyurl.com/d2hg6j
reading http://tinyurl.com/d2hg6j google local results… about london
Google this is terrible, please stop showing local results http://tinyurl.com/d2hg6j
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