Google Makes Changes To Local Listings On Android, iOS

Google has made some adjustments to local search results on Android and iOS devices. Users can now see an experience that more closely resembles that of the desktop experience. “I’ll admit...
Google Makes Changes To Local Listings On Android, iOS
Written by Chris Crum

Google has made some adjustments to local search results on Android and iOS devices. Users can now see an experience that more closely resembles that of the desktop experience.

“I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a picky eater,” writes Google software engineer Dan Zivkovic on the company’s Inside Search blog. “If I’m choosing a restaurant, I want to know that it has good reviews, that they’ll have food items I like, that it’s not too expensive, and all that. With the new changes to the local listings in search on mobile devices, now I’ll be able to see more details about places quickly and make decisions more easily — whether about restaurants or any other type of place.”

“For example, if I search for [restaurants dallas] on my mobile phone now, I’m presented with a list of local results as usual,” says Zivkovic. “Now, if I click on the name of the place, I instantly see a summary of the business, with reviews, photos, and more details, similar to the local information you see when searching on your computer. Okay, this place looks fine, but what about the other results from the list? With a simple swipe of the page left or right, I can see the local result before or after this one, to quickly compare the different options and make a decision on where to eat.”

Google has recently made some adjustments to how it handles local searches in general. Earlier this month, Google put out a list of algorithm changes it made in April. Several of them had to do with local. These included: more local sites from organizations, improvements to local navigational searches, more comprehensive predictions for local queries and improvements to the triggering of Google’s public data search.

It’s getting closer to the end of May, so before too long we should see Google’s big list of changes for this month. It will be interesting to see how many of these are related to local searches.

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