Understanding Google Places & Local Search – Developing Knowledge about Local Search

November 11, 2008

Goog-411 updated to “single search box”

Category: Google Places (Maps & Local) – Mike Blumenthal – 6:33 am

Goog-411, Google’s voice driven 411 directory assistance that uses the same business listings and rankings as Google Maps, has recently been upgraded to only require a single business + city search phrase. This upgrade mirrors the late  July blue line upgrade to Maps that moved Maps from a two field entry (one each for business and location) to a single single search box like the main Google search page.

Goog-411 now starts the search with the phrase: Say the business and the city and state…If that query is not understood the service reverts back to the requirement to entry first say just the city and state. Once that query is answered it then notes: What business name or category?. While it is not noted the user can still ask for category + city during the first query combined query.

When on the road

Please consider leaving a comment as your input will help me (& everyone else) better understand and learn about local.

1 Comment »

  1. [...] have an iPhone, but would like some sense of what a single field voice search is like try the recently upgraded Goog-411. « Google Maps API Terms of Service Update – Will Mashups be threatened by [...]

    Pingback by Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search » Local Links of Interest | Developing Knowledge about Local Search — November 15, 2008 @ 12:35 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. | TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

XHTML ( You can use these tags): <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> .

Comments links could be nofollow free.