Google Expands Local Search, Mobile Search Service to Canada

Google has announced a further enhancement of its local search capabilities by extending its successful GOOG-411 service into Canada. Google’s move highlights the importance of having an optimized local business profile that is capable of being found online when potential customers are looking for local products and services online – whether that search is from a laptop, from a “smart” mobile phone with abilities to conduct internet searches, or now from any phone thanks to improvements to Google’s 411 service.

Through an amalgamation of sophisticated voice-recognition software, traditional business listings and Google’s core internet search business, users of GOOG-411 dial the service’s number (1-800-GOOG-411) and answer the search questions that Google’s computer poses.

GOOG-411 is “Much like a movie theatre search service,” the Canada’s Globe and Mail reports. “It asks for the user’s city and province, then what they are searching for. A request for “pizza” made from the Globe and Mail newsroom in downtown Toronto yielded eight responses, and the service listed the choices and offered addresses for each.”

Google provides phone numbers for local business carrying the products and services the searcher is looking for, sends a text message with the information or, if desired, will sends a local Google Map listing the products, location, numbers and other information directly to the service user’s cell phone screen.

Canadian users of the new-generation “smart phones” will likely take to this new service in droves as it is rolled out beyond the United States for the first time. Local business owners will want to ensure that their web pages are registered with Google for the new service, and will show up when tech-savvy customers type in local search and, now, mobile search terms that describe their products.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 9:13 am and is filed under Local Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.