Google Maps Update

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25/02/2008

Google has finally got around to updating their Maps listings and along with it, have also changed the layout of these results within the search engine results page (SERPs).

Over the past 6 months or so, Google have been playing around with the layout of the SERPs and have now decided that for any query which appears to be of a local search format, the top half of the results will be dominated by their Google Maps listings.

So, for a query in the format of "product/shop IN location", the listings above the fold in the 1st page of results will be dominated by Google Maps. For example, the screenshot above shows the Orange Shop locations which are displayed for the "Orange Shop in London" query.

This change in SERP layout really does help demonstrate how Google is trying to interpret the user intent of each query that is typed into their search engine and display more accurate results accordingly.