Google is now offering a local search service designed to help find things close to home. This includes small businesses and their ads, which is currently a $22 billion market search engines wish to tap.
The service (
http://local.google.com ) starts today and is the latest of local search improvements including engines Yahoo and SuperPages.com. Studies show people with improving internet access now search online instead of through Yellow Pages.
Google estimates put 70% of people, when searching for merchants, are looking for something local while merchants spent only about $2 billion last year on ads. Despite this, Google will not be taking local ads until the service is better established.
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